


Episode 4- If You Know the Enemy

by Aintzane



Series: Small Fish in a Big Pond - Volume One [5]
Category: Warhammer - All Media Types, Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-13 01:07:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15352860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aintzane/pseuds/Aintzane
Summary: Dark Apostle Imudon still needs the ritual to be finished. Horrifying memories and visions of his shrine are pestering Volentia almost every night but she has to keep on working, even when a week of respite ends with a disastrous accident. A Sanctum Dialogous on a backwater planet has been assaulted by Chaos worshippers who are after a priceless relic stored there.





	1. Prologue

The gods were silent. Imudon had failed for too many times during the last years. He didn't care much about another escaped captive at first, but the mark attracted a trail he thought he'd left behind centuries ago.

The gods had never liked him, and the feeling was mutual. Back in the wayward days of the Great Revolt, they'd agreed to keep his secret in exchange for the rites he saw as meaningless waste of time. But for the mediation of his meek and tricky First Acolyte, he'd be devoured by the nightmarish forces of the warp or terminated by his own superiors of past.

Imudon harboured subconscious disgust for the First Acolyte, the only one who felt at at home in the nightmarish shrine that was Imudon's shelter and prison. Anchored in the material realm by means of sorcery incomprehensible for human minds, it made everything that came in touch with its spectral walls distort and wither. Millions of slaves and cultists had to be brought there to get their share of the shrine's thirst lest Imudon and his company themselves got consumed by the gods' maw.

His steps soundless as usual, the First Acolyte entered Imudon's place of contemplation and bowed his head with a coy smile. The news he brought had always been but sour. He never forgot to remind Imudon he was about to fall from the gods' grace.

'The captive sorcerer has shed his poisoned blood on the altar along with his Black Legion retinue, my lord, and their master can complain as long as he wishes. The Commissar who fled with the mark a year ago has been brought to the undervaults. Only the Inquisitor remains'.

Imudon hated constant subtle reminders of his failures. The last of his escaped offerings stood between him and the only closed gate of the shrine that promised a chance to leave the place for good. The gods are never eager to let away those they had claimed for themselves. She had to be captured, slain on the nightmarish altars or, even better, brought to her knees before the gods to get their seal and spread their influence further. She will be bound, yet he will go free.

'Go and visit the null. She's despicable and weak, but she can do well if she repeats her cowardly abdication before the faithful'.

Plodia opened her eyes trying not to look down through the bottom of the cage where, meters beneath, cultists had gathered for another disgusting rite. As time was absent there, she may have spent decades if not centuries in these nightmarish walls.

She'd been stupid, she'd been weak. Brought down by the Dark Apostle's blow, she couldn't help crying out what she'd concealed for years. Hatred for the pious neat world of her family, hatred for the Emperor whom she'd viewed as a meaningless symbol of 'decent behaviour' advertised by her homey, shy parents. Vid-logs of the repudiation were hundredfold to any record of her fornication with the damn Panther. Utter disgrace to her children, her forgiving husband, her elderly parents, her friends and colleagues.

It was her blank nature that let her live through this, but her penance had been harder than anything she'd survived. She'd spent hours on her knees in confessions and prayers, first out of mere fear, then overwhelmed by sorrow and shame.

In a simple robe, with a penitent's shaven head, she embarked with Cichlasoma's team to repay her debt in blood in a sanctuary taken by Imudon's forces. When one of the shadows struck, even her ability failed her.

She shivered as the First Acolyte appeared from nowhere in the passage behind her cage. He always came back and would arrive again and again till she agreed to do the Dark Apostle's bidding. Trying to cope with blind, desperate fear, she whispered a few words of a prayer she'd learned years ago. Who but the Emperor can protect her now?


	2. I

A fortnight at the seastrand on a paradise world seemed relatively safe compared to the places we'd visited before, but the universe we lived in was pretty big on surprises. Everything was just too fine to go smoothly. I received the answer to my leave application during the warp travel on Aeneus' vessel, so the younger Corydoras suggested dropping us on a small resort world where he had trade business.

Even gallant and social Aeneus, let alone his stern sister, were in much dismay after the scandals as news kept arriving. They'd done their best to spare Plodia's parents the most disturbing details but the couple's Ordo Hereticus colleagues as well as Lady Cichlasoma's numerous retinue couldn't resist gossiping about the sad outcome of Plodia's ventures.

Lady Plodia Interpunctella's reputation had been far from flawless since her younger years, as I'd learned from Captain Melitara, yet no one expected her to fail in such a shameful way. My astropathic mailbox was full of bulletins and comments about the fateful duel with Imudon and her transfer to Ordo Malleus. Fungata had even sent a piece of the log with another load of quotes to every novice Inquisitor under her control as a warning. The utterly pathetic sight of Plodia crying at the Dark Apostle's feet, her new monastic garb torn and dirty, her naked face smeared with tears. Horrible words that came out of her mouth were an even more crushing blow to my admiration of my colleague than Aphedron's salty tales.

I tried to cheer up her children as they didn't deserve to be famous in such a bad way. Lord Corydoras had withdrawn to the borders to be as far from the scandal as possible. Every trace of his wife had been lost though a few Malleus teams were currently out pursuing Imudon's warhost.

On the tenth day at breakfast Aeneus announced we were to leave the warp in half a day. Although willing to befriend the easy-going energetic man, I felt too uneasy in his company while the shadow of our common enemy was lingering around.

'You'll like the place.' he tried to sound cheerful but his face was worn and peaked. 'That's why I try to pick trade requests from this world of slackery. A chance to get rid of insomnia if there're a few days off between the negotiations.'

'In the unrest like now it sounds almost like a pipe dream,' I replied, and my heart sank at the memory of today's nightmare.

Imudon's stalking had returned on the very day we left the doomed planet of the Casbah. While my days were disturbed by the workplace mess, the nights were poisoned by menacing views of the chaotic altars and his solemn threats. I'd chosen a room that was close to the nulls' quarters but, to my surprise, their proximity couldn't muffle my enemy's voice.

Ephestia wasn't as talkative as her brother but Fluffster had managed to win her trust quite quickly. They often conversed in subtle gestures discussing matters he wasn't eager to share. When she arrived to the mess, I tried to ask the veteran witch-hunter questions about all the warp-tricks I'd encountered during my missions. She presumed I had to break the mind-link that connected me to the daemonic shrine after the sacrifice but shook her head when I asked her about the soul binding.

'The Emperor is watching you wherever you are,' Fluffster interpreted her signs. 'When you were a child, either your parents or your guardians brought you to the local templum to consecrate you to Him. So why do you think a wretched traitor has more rights for your soul than He?'

'But how shall I treat my sticky pursuant?'

'Don't follow him, don't take anything he gives you, don't agree for anything he offers you. Don't repeat my mother's drastic mistakes.'

Her face twitched when she showed the last signs. I knew she and Aeneus were going to join their father in his search for Plodia after they finished their preparations in the system we were heading to. If no other commission arrived, I was eager to follow them. Plodia might have been a renegade but only because of her intervention I hadn't become live fodder for Imudon's horrendous pet. Her family were the closest people to me after my own retinue.

My team was delighted by the news of our timely arrival. The Exterminatus of the Casbah had ridden Angel of his disturbing tantrums but he felt too shy to be around other people. Uncle and Sister, on the other hand, were drawn to Aeneus and his crew of dashing youths about his age. He was able to find the key to almost everyone despite the overall distress, and even the distant, reserved pariah warriors relaxed when the whole crew gathered in the big mess on the bridge.

They dropped us on the second planet of the local star for a fortnight they were going to spend buying provisions and doing repairs before the risky raid. When I parked the owl and walked out to a quiet sandy beach, I was nearly shocked by the peace of this place as if there was no desperate war just a sub-sector away.

The sun was setting over the sparkling expanse of the sea, and blooming trees rustled in the breeze under the cloudless high sky. Like in the old town of my past, wave after wave rolled on the white sand, and the warm air smelled of salt and orange flowers. I remembered spending hours in the convent garden with needles or books, strolling on the strand on holidays, buying fresh fish and fruit with Sister Cellaress at the old market close to the port. May they all rest in peace in His Celestial Realm.

I changed into the light dress I'd bought for my coffeeshop work, threw off my worn boots and sat on the edge of a breakwater, dabbling my bare feet in the waves. The main tourist season was yet to begin, and we were the only visitors to the wild beach. Hill terraces a few miles to the right were brightly lit, glamorous hotels and restaurants already meeting the first customers.

'Truly a paradise of a world.' Uncle was looking at the darkening sky with a content face I hadn't seen since the mess in the cafe. 'Maybe we'll be able to save up and buy a house in a place like that. A planet I'd like to spend my last years on.'

'Isn't it too early to whine about last years?' Fluffster grumbled. 'I haven't seen many Inquisitors who had a luxurious opportunity to settle on a cozy and boring planet.'

'As if you understand anything. Many of the Conclave have decent paperwork office job. One cannot run around like that for decades. Volentia will grow up and get ready to build her own home. There're nice fellows around, like Aeneus. He's familiar with the whole inquisition business so he won't get scared of her.'

Uncle's idea of decent life and happiness was uncompromising; he'd left his vagrant life of a hired gun for a family home, and only the emptied nest syndrome and the following loss of his loved ones made him return to active service. As for Aeneus, he was easy and fun, not for a future perspective of a rich heir but for rogue trader life that gave him even more freedom that my own status. But unfortunately he didn't look like a man of real power or responsibility.

'I'd make a few holes in that Slaaneshite's dumb head,' Uncle went on. 'He's stolen almost everything Volentia won in the gambling house. If not for the kindness of the younger Corydoras, we'd have to live on instant noodles again.'

'The owl is no worse than any of the hotels, Uncle. If you need more funds, let's just sell the gemstones I've taken.'

'Don't even start talking about spending that, lassie. No one knows what can ever happen right tomorrow. There're some funds left on your card, tomorrow I'll go to the closest village to buy everything we need. Your working clothes are a pile of rags. How can we let an agent of the Throne look like a hobo?'

I winked at him. 'Servants of Chaos will shoot at the most pompous Inquisitor, not at a random hobo girl who then blows up their base as if plundering their trash cans.'

I woke up with a vague feeling of trouble during the first week but everything was surprisingly calm. We took long strolls along the sunlit coast, spent hours on the beach swimming and sunbathing, visited orchard villages and evergreen mountain forests in the owl.

'It was a real wonder when I first saw a garden in the Arx Angelicum.' Angel lay on his back under a blooming orange tree. 'After the endless red sands of the wastelands. My parents didn't allow me to get out of the truck. Me and my sisters, we were always sitting at the small curtained windows to have at least a glimpse of the outer world. It seemed so big before I left the moon forever. My great-grand-nephews are dreaming about the same in the same old truck down there. They wouldn't recognize me even if I returned.'

'Cruel customs.' Uncle sighed.

'I haven't seen a place as nice as this before,' Sister admitted. 'It's almost always winter on the world I used to live on. First the Schola on the eastern continent, then the convent across the sea.'

I was silent, too deep in the memories of times so far away they had happened to another person, not the Ordo operative but a simple girl who could hardly think about another life. Tales of Imperial saints and adventure novels promised a world of danger and action beyond the starry void but none of us would have become a pilot or rogue trader let alone get in touch with formidable mysteries a random civilian cannot even imagine.

The last day felt even sad though I was eager to move on back to the battlefield. I got up as early as usual to meet another sunrise on the quiet deserted beach. The sea was a flat calm, smooth as a mirror, and seaside groves were soundless, still deep in slumber. Soon birds would wake up to soar to the clear dawn sky. I walked half a mile along the coast, knee deep in water, looking at colourful fish flickering over my feet.

When the rising sun lit the sea, I hurried back to the owl. We had to complete the preparations for departure as Aeneus had promised to pick us up in the evening. My application for a joint operation with Corydoras' team should get an answer today as well.

To my astonishment, the owl was silent. None of my friends had got up yet. Everything was peaceful like before but a slight, barely perceptible disturbance in the warp was lingering over the place. I rushed to the entrance and opened the door. All the four had vanished with no trace. Without a single footprint on the sand.

A bad dream I'd stuck in. I flopped to the entrance steps and rubbed my eyes trying to awake. A sickening return of the overwhelming horror back in the cursed desert. Abducted by foul sorcery, and I was too weak to get even a hint of a trail. I'd better have stayed in the owl to share their captivity.

I reflexively checked up my inventory and arsenal, closed the owl door and hobbled to the closest resort to get away and check my mailbox. There were no Inquisitorial outposts in the system to accept and forward astropathic messages from Uebotia, so I had to wait till the evening to get in touch with my curator through Aeneus' astropath. I still had a faint hope the enigmatic kidnappers could send me a message.

The mailbox was empty save for a few spam letters. I deleted them and opened the messenger window. 'Is it ok if you pick me up now, Aeneus? The trader answered in a few minutes. 'I thought you'd like to enjoy your rest as long as possible. And why in the singular?' 'Emergency accident. Please come as soon as possible.'

As if the kidnapping was not enough, the owl systems had been blocked, and I was unable to drive it to the orbit. At noon Aeneus and Ephestia arrived in a lighter, accompanied by a cargo shuttle to tow the owl to the ship. While servo-drones were hooking towing cables to the owl roof, I told the two about the accident.

'We're with you, dear Miss Volentia.' Aeneus took me by both hands. 'Our team wishes them safe return under His protection. I'll personally do my best to cheer you up aboard.'

Ephestia put a hand on his shoulder and made a few gestures.

'Sister asks you do you have a nemesis to blackmail you?'

'Dark Apostle Imudon.' I shivered against my will, and Aeneus covered my bare shoulders with his cloak. 'But he'd capture me for a sacrifice, not my friends. Probably someone ditched by my late mentor.'

'Fluffster's Mechanicus rivals? Or Drukhari slavers?'

'The Commorrites don't leave a warp disturbance behind. And, if I were them, I'd head to the peopled resorts at night.'

'A Malleus team must be summoned,' Aeneus interpreted another wordless remark. 'Meanwhile you'll be safe among us.'

Once on board, I quickly pulled on fatigues and a tunic and hurried to the astropath's secluded quarters. The elderly woman's face was quite grumpy when she put aside her cup and turned off the music player.

'Shall I read the letter or plug in a servo-scribe, m'lady?' she asked reaching for her seer crystals in a large porcelain bowl next to the cup and a plate of fruit.

'I'd like to know whether the Conclave allows me to join the expedition, ma'am.'

Ten minutes had passed till she spoke again.

'I'm afraid I'll disappoint you, m'lady, but... Lady Fungata has sent you another commission.'

'Can we contact her now?'

'As far as I know, her workday is over by Uebotian time.'

'Let's contact her by messenger then.'

The astropath sighed and opened one of the table drawers. She took out a metal headband and secured the clasp on the back of her head.

'Plug in your slate. But I must warn you that it might take time till the on-call astropath sends it to your curator and gets a reply.'

I quickly typed in a brief account of my trouble and repeated the previous request. Meanwhile Fungata's letter was uploaded to my device. I checked it up before sending the message. A presumed attack on a Dialogous convent in the sub-sector, probably I was the closest operative that could find out why the connection had been lost. A great idea to complete the case alone and without armour. We hadn't bought a new carapace because Aeneus promised me a whole set of armour from the ample arsenals of the Morning Glory.

The message was marked as read a few minutes later, and the astropath advised me to wait for an hour or two. I joined my new buddies in the mess, my mood even darker than before.

'They'll change their mind when they read about the kidnapping.' Aeneus poured me a glass of wine with an encouraging smile.

'Just in case, do you have an old carapace you don't need?'

'Let's look it up in the arsenal today evening, Volentia. I'll be glad to help a fair lady in distress.'

I liked his open nature and friendly manners. He already talked to me as if I was an ancient acquaintance, without any prejudice against my status as he was familiar with the Inquisition business since his younger years. Not as handsome as Angel but with a charming smug face.

The answer arrived in two hours and brought no good news. 'We are all instruments of His Divine Will, Miss Volentia, and have to sacrifice our own mundane interests for the sake of obedience. There are enough operatives in the search team. As for your retinue, the case will be transferred to the next available Inquisitor that is properly equipped for the mission. Currently we do not have an opportunity to deliver you a carapace, so the cost will be reimbursed when you return to Uebotia, if you deliver a receipt of your purchase. In the attachment you will find the landing coordinates and the password. A squad of the Raven Guard chapter has already arrived to assist us, they will meet you on the spot. May the Emperor guard you.'

Irritated and tired, I spent a few hours in my room browsing random stuff through the local network and went out only because I needed to find a cuirass before it got hot. Aeneus met me at the arsenal door, ready to express his disapproval of the Conclave's bureaucracy. Most carapaces on the armour racks were way too large, but then the trader found a few that could fit a woman of medium height.

'Look at this one. It once belonged to my ex-first mate, and I still miss her.'

'She died in a battle?'

'Not really. We've just... grown apart. I feel so lonely afterwards. Please let me help you don this one.'

He fastened the clasps and ran his hands down my sides.

'This one is just perfect. I'm sorry it's quite worn but it will defend you well in your sacred job. Now, if you don't object, we'll have it carried to your owl and then spend some time in the ship garden with a bottle of good wine to ease today's sorrows.'

'The enemies have taken another family of mine, Aeneus. I have to be my own retinue from now on. If I survive, I'll apply to your parents' team.'

'You shouldn't be alone at least now.' He hugged me by the shoulders.

Ephestia met us before the entrance to the garden. She made a few brisk signs, and Aeneus frowned but took his arm off my back.

'I'm very sorry, Volentia. News arrive at a bad time as usual. Hope we'll find better hours to spend together.'

When he left, Ephestia pointed at the dataslate on my belt. I shrugged my shoulders and handed her the device. She typed in a few lines and gave it back to me.

'You should be less trusting if you want to combat heresy. Aeneus has repeated the same tricks with a remarkable number of ladies your age but only few of them were Inquisitorial agents.'

'He's kind to me unlike many.'

She typed in another answer. 'Enjoy his friendship but don't lose your head and dream about anything more. Upbringing in inappropriate collectives makes people easy prey.'

'When in my mentor's retinue, I had to think about surviving another bad hair day, not picking up social skills apart from bargaining and brawling with all kinds of scum.'

The flight was quite short and took us three full days. Probably discouraged by his sister's admonishments, Aeneus had given up flirting but was still friendly as with everyone else. They were generous enough to supply me with not only extra promethium for my chainsword but with a share of their provisions. I wished them a speedy reunion with their mother and stepped into the owl.

It was twilight, deep in a summer forest. Mast pines towered high in the darkening sky, their summits almost hidden from view by rustling branches of hawthorn and hazel. Mossy trunks of fallen trees blocked the path here and there. When the owl engine shut down, I turned on the cloaking device, opened the map and crawled under a leaning birch tree, turned right to avoid a thicket of brambles, wrapped the scarf around my face and broke through giant nettles almost twice my height.

A black shadow slipped between the trees at the edge of my sight. I stopped and grabbed my laspistol but the stranger was quicker. A gloved hand grabbed my wrist from behind, and I felt a sharp blade touch my throat.

'What are you doing here?' The voice sounded muffled as if it came out of a vox dynamic.

'Why should I tell that to an assaulter?' I tried to turn my head a bit to look at the stranger.

The blade left a cut on my skin but I managed to get a glimpse of a white raven on the stranger's black pauldron.

'Pelicans fly south,' I whispered the password, and the Raven Guard warrior withdrew his knife.

'Orite, Inquisitor Volentia. I'm Sergeant Raaf, Third Company.'

'Nice to meet you, sergeant. Impressed by the ability of such a giant to melt into the forest.'

'There're two more right next to you.'

I had to turn on my flashlight to see their black shapes in the dark.

'This very place doesn't show signs of regular battles yet you're in combat readiness, sir.'

'You're lucky not to have met someone worse than the nearby cultists. Follow me to meet me crew.'

The whole squad took residence in a perfectly masked dugout under the roots of a gigantic overturned pine. Two tactical marines were pondering over a military map on a dataslate, another one was pouring hot water to six plastic boxes of instant lunch. Though I knew that was no sign of Chaotic mutation, their pasty skin and completely black, bird-like eyes looked disturbing.

'Our new 'uddy, bruvvas.' Raaf took off his helmet and slapped me on the shoulder.

'Innit.' One of the marines raised his head from the map. 'That's all they could send?'

I smiled back. 'Just because they don't seem to need me for themselves.'

'They couldn't even find you a couple of bloody hired guns?'

His remark struck a nerve. 'That's a story for another day.'

'Nuff.' Raaf nodded when I clenched my fists. 'You'll goof on the bats once we catch 'em with their pants down. Sit down here, Inquisitor, let's see what you can do here.'

I leaned over the map to avoid further questions. The dugout was marked with the Chapter's emblem, and a route through the woodlands connected it to another outpost about twenty miles away. Some villages were marked as red, some as blue. Ten kilometers to the north-west from the second outpost, there was a large highway that led to the Sanctum Dialogous. The Imperial forces, both the PDF and the Sisters, were gathered inside the convent walls while tokens representing the enemy were scattered all around. The Star of Chaos, a leering daemonic face and a bat-winged skull. I noticed with irritation that the sub-sector government hadn't even bothered to locate a Navy squadron in the system.

'Is the disposition correct?' I frowned.

'Not quite so. Three almost separate forces, one of which is impossible to control and another one not really eager to engage in direct combat.'

I whistled. 'Forces of two Traitor Legions. Most would tell you we're screwed.'

'About sixty Word Bearers and twenty Night Lords,' another marine said. 'Their ship is not in orbit so we suspect a proper fresh force can arrive anytime through the warp.'

'The rest are cultist bands. Most brought by the preachers but some of the villagers have gone nuts and joined them,' Raaf went on. 'The Night Lords look like mere mercenaries, hanging around at night to keep the locals in panic, plundering everything they can get their hands on.'

'What about the siege then?'

'Less active than we thought. We guess they expect the Sisters to get out of ammo and provisions. Every attempt to deliver supplies has failed, Canoness Chrysopa was like. We're currently doing reconnaissance and distracting cultists and the Night Lords in the area. Worst of all, the radio channels and vox lines have been hacked.'

'That's where I can be of use. You need to sneak the reconnaissance data to the outpost.'

'The High Inquisitor was like, you have a retinue of four well good fighters including a Blood Angel,' the first marine grunted.

'I thought you don't like the Blood Angels anyway. And marching through this haunted forest with fife and drum sounds like utter nonsense. Are there refugees?'

'The locals are crazy with panic. Assaults like that haven't happened for a while.'

'For the better. No one will suspect a frightened civilian girl running through the woods to her aunt. If I leave my weapons and carapace, the rest looks like plain working or hiking clothes.'

'If you get caught, you'll be scared shitless and turn us in,' Raaf said stubbornly. 'You have no idea who the Night Lords are. If they find out you're the Inquisitor sent to deal with them, they'll send you to the convent cut to a hundred pieces.'

'I've been to a siege camp of the Iron Warriors and a cursed fortress and came out alive. Moreover, I've got a rosette so we'd better be good buddies.' I stood straight with my cheekiest smirk.

'A smart-assed gurl. Talk is talk, and you sure talk a lot. The ours will soon come back for dinner. Have something for the common table?'

I took a can of corned meat and a chocolate bar out of my bag.

'Not a lot. Wanna moonshine?'

I sipped on the cloudy hooch with a warm feeling of company. Groovy and laid-back more than other space marines, the Raven Guard were so far among the most normal of their kind. They were rude but not arrogant as the Iron Hands, relatable but without Aphedron's perverted cruelty. More like suburb teens I used to talk to while in my mentor's retinue.

'When will your crew arrive then?' Raaf asked me after dinner.

'They won't. An unknown enemy has taken them.'


	3. II

The sun was still low behind the tall firs and pines when I left the dugout for the outpost. A typical countryside landscape, it didn't even remotely resemble a frontline on that quiet summer morning. Soft wind rustling in reeds and hazel bushes, fresh cheerful greenery sparkling with countless daisies and forget-me-nots. I felt sure even without my usual armaments. As the air was still fresh, I pulled the scarf tighter over my shoulders checking the tiny data card inside the edging seam. Neat and easy to destroy if needed.

Everything looked like I was back to my first years of life, blissful and almost cloudless compared to the present. I hardly felt like an embodiment of His wrath marching along a deserted village road in my hiking garbs. Pebbles rolled from under my feet, content frogs croaked in roadside ditches as if there was no inevitable danger. From a grove to the hills, across a river over a creaky wooden bridge, along an endless row of conifers till I stopped on a vast meadow for a rest.

The day had reached its peak, and the chilly morning gave way to a lazy, steamy noon. Almost hidden by chicory and melilote, I opened the map observing the place. From the hilltop I saw first traces of human presence since dawn - the highway to the left and hardly visible outlines of farm buildings in the distance. As time passed, it felt more and more out of norm. Not a single car appeared on the road, and the fields around the farms were empty. The traitors had driven the locals out of their dwellings, and more troublesome sights were yet to be seen.

As I learned in an hour, the farmers had left their place in great haste. Messy heaps of clothes and broken dishes, doors swung open, combines and tractors out of their hangars. A flock of stray chickens were pecking on a dried bread loaf paying no attention to the disarray. On the cracked storage wall there was a single mark of the oncoming nightmare: a familiar bat-winged skull drawn in dried blood.

The Ravens had said the area was relatively safe at daytime, especially when left by the population. To my relief, the Word Bearers were unlikely to appear around as they focused on besieging the convent. The Night Lords were averse to broad daylight, and the day was sunny, Emperor be praised. Poorly armed cultists were few away from the Sanctum and hardly a threat at all here.

The road split in three as I left the fields, and I had to take care not to leave the route. My goal was still too far away. Yesterday timeline calculations gave no room for even the slightest mistakes. I had to march as fast as possible to get to the outpost at sundown. I got to the highway in less than an hour with a growing feeling of unrest. Road signs were either destroyed or painted with Chaotic sigils beyond reading, so I counted turns to the right to find the one to take. The seventeenth, to Strawberry Fields, I repeated nervously staring at the horizon.

As I walked on, cloud after cloud appeared on the sky, first snow-white and transparent, then they got grey and heavy. The wind grew stronger, throwing roadside dust to my face, fiercely tearing at my scarf.

They will appear at nightfall. I startled at an engine sound behind my back. A truck out of nowhere.

'Hey, you!' I heard a woman's voice when the truck drove closer. 'You goin' where?'

'Strawberry Fields, ma'am. Me old auntie lives there. The nightmares came to our farm last night...'

I sobbed dropping the last phrase.

'Get to the truck, dummy. You've got no chance to get there 'fore they come back. Gonna be a hell of a rain.'

The woman didn't look like a cultist. Her truck could win some time to fall in the safe range. She seemed even glad to find someone to talk while driving.

'Show me where to drop you off, girl. I don't know the area well. An utter horror, I say. Me son and daughter-in-law have been lucky to get a job at the nunnery this spring. Everything was just orright even a couple weeks ago. My grandkids have come here for the holidays. First, absolute silence, I say. I couldn't call me children for a few days, I say. Breakdown, they said in the shop. Then rumours from the vicinity. Sounded like utter nonsense. Giant nightmares. Haven't seen 'em with me own eyes yet, but decided to get outta here before they came to me house. My neighbors have got a look. They ran to me farm at night, half-nuts. Here they're, sleeping in the back. The good Sisters will help us, for the Emperor's mercy.'

I nodded not interrupting the refugee's monologue. Sadly, I couldn't warn her about the danger that lay ahead. We drove past more and more abandoned villages, burnt cars, fences inscribed with unholy runes like those I'd seen at my fateful sacrifice. The woman's face was a mixture of fear and disgust.

'Looks like you don't have to go to your Fields, girl. Your aunt has probably set off for the convent. Stay with us, there's enough space and food for you as well.'

'Thank you, ma'am.' I tried to sound convincing. 'My auntie's got a vineyard. Her cellars are just fine and safe. The nightmares won't get there.'

'No nonsense, dummy,' she said strictly. 'No'ne but the good Sisters can drive 'em off.'

I clenched my teeth in vexation. No way, flashing the rosette was the last thing to do. She might betray me if the 'nightmares' caught her. Luckily, my turn was right there.

'Strawberry Fields, ma'am, please. Thank you for your kindness, ma'am.'

She looked at me with suspicion but stopped the car.

'You're either nuts or... Get out, I'd better not mess into your business.'

I hurried down the slope through blooming hawthorn. Rainstorm clouds were dark blue, almost black against the orange sunset sky. Two miles, and I'm there. The truck had been a deal of help. I marched on with growing enthusiasm but tripped on a broken road sign on a crossroads.

'Strawberry Fields, 5 miles'. Dammit. I must have missed the turn arguing with the driver. In an hour or so it will be dark, and only the Emperor knows what's going on in the villages around. I tried not to think about a gruesome tale of the Night Lords once told by my mentor. His take-it-easy attitude had made him even kind of appreciate a blackmail cryptic message composed of bloody pieces of a few dismembered acolytes.

First drops fell on the dusty path. I dashed forward desperately. To my dismay, the road led to a shady conifer treeline. I had no other choice but to run forward through the forest startling at every strange sound. In haste I climbed over a mossy log almost my height, left a few scraps of my tunic in thick brambles, finally, took a deep breath on the other side with some relief. The open field was a safer place in the evening.

A wall of rain veiled everything. All I could see was a bit of wet grass under my feet. I stopped reflectively as a lighting flashed right next to me, and at the deafening clap of thunder a strong hand gripped me by the neck.

In twilight gloom I could hardly see the armoured giant who had caught me. The weather had let them leave their den earlier than usual. He dragged me on so quickly as if it was in clear daylight. I had already soaked to the bone, torrents of rainwater streaming down my hair and clothes. When a lightning flashed again, I saw ominous bat wings on the warrior's helmet. I had to face my fate sooner than I expected.

After about a mile through dirt and murk the traitor had brought me to an abandoned village. Unlit husks of once neat country houses were animated in an eerie, undead way. Giant spectres in power armour like my captor slipped in and out in complete silence. The traitor led me towards a big house on the very edge. Its livid white colour stood out of the benighted place, and the gate was almost next to the spruce forest half-circling the village. In the lowest, darkest corner chill seemed to get to the very marrow.

My captor greeted the guards in a language I didn't know. The dark house's maw swallowed us. I couldn't see anything, but my psyker-sight felt the presence of five other ancient warriors. The traitor remained silent as we climbed a creaking wooden ladder to the upper floor. Only then he lit a small candle letting me see the place.

The side attic room was dusty and modest. A bareheaded warrior in midnight blue armour was sitting in a large armchair, his head almost touching the kneewall. His eerie appearance was little different from the Ravens, yet his pallid face was strained and languid, and dark gound oozed from his eyes as he blinked at the light.

My captor said something and pushed me in the back. I couldn't even call my state real fear, more like dizzy stupor, when everything was hardly real at all. Nightmares - a perfect word coined by the locals. Time to wake up, I thought making a mindless step forward. At least I'll manage to destroy the data card before they can retrieve it.

The traitor in the armchair brushed long glossy strands of hair off his face with his bare left hand and stirred with effort. His right gauntlet bore razor-sharp lightning claws, a weapon deadly even if not activated.

My face was level with the sitting giant's, and my eyes met his. His pale, thin lips moved. Bleak tone, weird accent.

'Who are you and where are you going?'

I tried to speak with confidence.

'A farmer, from Clear Pond, sir. Need to get to my poor old auntie.'

It sounded like sheer nonsense, I thought with hidden irritation. Still better than confused mumbling. I squeezed the scarf edge with the card, frozen under the Night Lord's stare.

'A bit too brave, aren't you?' By his tone I wasn't able to get whether he accepted the excuse or not. 'Don't you happen to be one of the Inquisitor's minions?'

Bony cold fingers gripped my face, and a claw tip touched the corner of my left eye, slipped down my cheek. The Night Lord was watching the reaction carefully.

'Have you seen the Inquisitor? She's just landed with a band of fighters right where you come from.'

'Not at all, sir,' I wheezed out with my eyes closed.

'Lord Preacher will pay a nice sum for any hints of her. You may tell everything you know and I'll let you live, or these fine blades will help me to tell truth from lies.'

The claw tip moved to my neck, and I flinched at a light but sensible jab.

'No lie, sir. Please, let me go, sir.'

That was not the kind of fear he expected. He pursed his lips with bored disappointment. For a few seconds his eyes stared into mine, dim candlelight reflected in their black surface. Bloody teardrops oozed slowly from the corners but he blinked them back.

'If you fool me, I will cut you up into thousand pieces,' he uttered blandly and waved his clawed hand. 'Get out of here.'

My heart leapt. He blew out the candle, and the room got pitch dark again. My captor grabbed me by the hand and dragged me down to the doors. A nudge in the back, and I was out, alone in the fallen night. I could only wonder why the leader decided to get rid of me. I probably looked harmless and plain enough for a scared villager, or he was deep in problems worse than wasting time to mess with every stranger.

I ran away from the horrid village as fast as I could and only pulled myself together on seeing a roadside sign lit by a small lamp. 'Strawberry Fields'. I didn't remember how I found the outpost house and uttered the password, barely conscious after the day-long chase and the dangerous encounter.

A grumpy woman in Sororitas power armour seated me on a bench next to a few PDF soldiers and cut the scarf edging carefully to extract the data chip. One of the soldiers handed me a flask.

'The squad has located the enemy and is ready to engage the enemy, Sister...'

'Mallada,' she answered dryly. 'We've lost the communication satellite but the current attacks cannot break the outer defense of the Sanctum. The Holy Scripture is secure within the best fortified chamber of the library keep.'

'You're so sure the traitors want exactly that?'

'My lady, this is not the first attempt. A precious relic from the days of the Heresy, it was carried across the Galaxy by the first martyrs in His name, and many a heretic wished to destroy it. Finally, it was concealed on this tiny world out of their attention.'

'Not that out, Sister. I'm quite surprised you've been so optimistic about the perfect location. Most other library-keeps are guarded by Navy squadrons, and Orders Militant send no fewer than a thousand Battle-Sisters to protect the rare knowledge.'

'An unfortunate coincidence. We have a pact of defense with the Order Militant of the Silver Chalice but their shrine world has been assaulted by an especially vicious force of greenskins, The Sisters had to summon the full force of the Order to withstand the xenos. As far as I can judge, the Inquisition isn't aware of the gravity of our situation as they've sent you here alone and even unarmed.'

'I had to leave my armaments in my trailer to get to you safe and sound. Do we have any aircraft at our disposal?'

'The Navy vessels vanished first of all right prior to the attack. Canoness Chrysopa immediately called the Order to arms and ordered the closest towns to provide shelter for refugees.'

'By the way, Sister, I've made part of the way in a truck on the highway. They were driving to the convent, but I'm afraid...'

'We've set up road blocks to keep people away from the traitor forces. It's heartening to see any of your kind to care for the civilians.'

She gave me a slight smile that softened her stern face a bit. I smiled back and sipped on the flask.

'For how many days can you hold on within the walls?'

'Food supplies are enough for three weeks.'

'What about ammo then?'

'For two days.' She looked down to the floor. 'Wrong priorities, I should say. We've given a share of our ammunition to the besieged Sisters of the Silver Chalice.'

The reputation of the Orders Dialogous as cloistered and somewhat naive was kinda grounded. I'd learned from Fungata's info letter that the local PDF had two hundred soldiers most of whom were poorly trained and half were either green boys or elderly men. Mallada stayed at the outpost even after her reconnaissance attempts had failed with the satellite crash, watching over the roads just to do at least something.

Tired after the adventurous day, I found a place in the corner and leaned on the wall to take a nap till daybreak. My dreams were feverish and messy as usual but I didn't remember anything when wild, ear-splitting cacophony waked us all.

The windows were still dark as the day had just started to break. Bloodcurdling chants amplified by unholy machinery made the whole place shiver. Struck by a bout of vertigo at the sounds of eerie unwords incanted by the sinister choir, I froze as a swirling mayhem of visions flooded my mind. The dark cave lit by crimson torches. The warhost praising the gods before the sacrifice. Imudon's harsh eyes staring at me. The dagger of black flint cutting through my flesh and my soul.

I cried out and crumpled to the floor holding on to my chest. Two soldiers helped me to get up, and I closed my eyes whispering all scraps and bits of prayers that came to my mind. Mallada looked at me with disapproval.

'Inquisition should combat witch-powers, not to succumb to them to their own doom.'

'Execute me as a malevolent witch if you wish but rid me of unnecessary preaching, Sister,' I grunted struggling with an overpowering urge to throw up. 'There's something more worth your attention out there?'

'Are you at least soulbound?' she went on ignoring my grumpy tone. 'They might lure a daemon to your mind and...'

'They'll just flay us all to write another foulsome tome on our skin if that's what I'm thinking about.'

'Very funny. The convent has probably fallen. They begin the defilement of sacred places by pleasing the Ruinous Powers with unholy canticles. Listen well.'

Cries of agony and despair mixed in with the repulsive incantation. I looked out of the attic window but the Sanctum was hidden under an impenetrable smokescreen of sorcerous fumes. My psychic glance was too weak to get a glimpse of such a distant place.

Mallada gathered the soldiers in prayer before the attack. I tried to make her change her mind and try a more reasonable solution but she was adamant in her desire to accept martyrdom along with her Sisters.

'Where are your marines, my lady? The Raven Guard, though His Angels like the other Chapters, are no pious host so they won't hurry to assist us.'

'They're on the way.' I nodded to reassure her a bit. 'With their help, we'll be able to sneak into the keep unnoticed.'

'You Inquisitors prefer tricks to open fight.'

'I shall take a stick or a bottle opener and rush to battle with a cardboard box as armour.'

'Bottle openers are in the drawer, and there's cardboard in the next room.'

'Not needed, sorry.'

A very familiar shape appeared in the closest window. The owl was drifting over the treetops, one of the Ravens observing the vicinity from the roof. I leaned out and waved at them.

'Sorry for making use of yer trailer,' Raaf said entering the outpost shack. 'Even the Flying Fox has led his gang away. All we can do now is to take the survivors outta there.'

'We mustn't let the relic fall into the traitors' hands,' Mallada objected.

'Innit. Yer Canoness will carry it along. We've got a look at the convent walls. There's nothing left of their siege preparation. A few cultist corpses, that's all. Everyone's in.'

'You can get to the underground levels of the Sanctum through the sacristy.'

I quickly donned my carapace and checked the weapons.

'Sister, I strongly advise you to stay in the shack. We need constant overwatch of the area to successfully organize the evacuation. You may join our vox channel to send emergency signals but avoid giving out any details in the conversation.'

'The owl's already kinda overloaded,' Raaf said. Three of us will go to the place by foot to be ready to meet the retreating survivors. You'll go with us in the owl, ma'am.'

Fluffster had enabled stealth mode but I didn't have most of his special codes. I turned on the auspexes located in the front part of the trailer and sat at the screen tracing a good route to the convent. There was a treeline with lush foliage at the back of the convent, the assaulters hadn't even burnt it down as they seemed to have relied on sorcery, not siege warfare.

'Good we're not waging war against the Iron Warriors. No'ne would have been able to sneak past their lines.' Raaf came up and leaned over the control panel.

'I'd been in a conflict with them. If not for the destruction of their daemon engine, they'd have taken the Mechanicus archive.'

We landed in the treeline and walked towards the back gate. Dreadful canticles clamoured over the place, loud enough to deafening both ears and mind. Warp-smoke poured out of the convent inner yards over the almost unharmed walls. A maddening feeling of torn reality like on Coreopsis.

'The previous siege was but a lazy decoy, sergeant. They've got in through a warp rift. There can be a hidden shrine where they've conducted the ritual.'

A few bullet-ridden corpses of ragged cultists lay at the gates. I took a deep breath and put my rosette to the gate sensor. The assaulters hadn't even turned off the energy systems. When the heavy metal door slid open, gusts of suffocating fumes enveloped us. The Ravens vanished in the smokescreen, I covered my face with the scarf and followed them.

The inner courtyard was a vision of hell. Cries and groans of the dying were muffled by the cacophony of blasphemous prayers, mutilated corpses lay in piles where soldiers and cultists had met their deaths in furious combat. The convent cathedral was in flames, its walls defiled with repulsive sigils of Chaos drawn in fresh blood. A few crazed cultists were fighting between themselves, overtaken by battle fury to the point they couldn't tell allies from enemies. A giant in ancient crimson armour ended their brawl with a few bolter shots.

I crouched behind a broken statue before he could notice me. Through parting waves of smoke I saw a whole band of his fellow worshipper-legionnaires gathered around the main keep. Some were planting explosives at the walls, a few others were nailing dismembered bodies and still alive captives to the armour of their Predator tank.

A soldier got out from under a fallen tree with a lasgun, but the beam did no harm to the traitors clad in enhanced ceramite. The closest legionnaire grabbed him by the neck, bent his lasgun with one quick move and dragged him to a Chaotic banner raised in the center of the yard where another squad was slaughtering the remaining cultists. A sergeant's hail made him stop half-way, and he hurled the captive a few meters away at a corpse pile. The lucky man raised his head and crawled to the shadow of a still standing tree, when the marine returned to his brethren. Some hope that we'd be able to pass unnoticed.

Raaf's black shape appeared from the smoke, and he pointed at the burning cathedral.

'Quicker,' my vox came alive. 'While the systems are working.'

A lone warrior in rune-inscribed armour was standing at the overturned altarpiece chanting a terrifying hymn in a familiar melodic voice. His blasphemous offering lay bleeding on the defiled fragments of the altar, a Ministorum priest and two Sisters, all ridden of armour and disfigured but still breathing. He turned back slowly as we slipped in, and I stopped behind the column with laspistol in hand.

The abhorrent worshipper had no helmet on, and I froze the second I saw his face. Imudon's First Acolyte was approaching us slowly with the sacrificial dagger of black flint in his hand, his coy smile utterly uncanny for the murderous rites. The Ravens shot their bolters at him in synchrony.

It was the very air of the nave exploding with a flash of crimson flame. I doubled over, both hands on my solar plexus, the laspistol at my feet. When I was able to see again, Raaf was standing alone in the middle of the nave, the First Acolyte nowhere to be seen. The other three marines lay on the bloody floor, their armour cracked, limbs twisted under unnatural angles.

'Alive, sergeant?' I hobbled out, still haywired.

'Innit. But me crew... We have to do well for they don't die. Broken limbs and contusions in the heat of the fight.'

More by the power of their armour's machine spirits than by their own strength, the wounded marines got to their feet. They didn't show weakness or pain, but their aura of suffering hurt at the psychic touch.

'Hold on for some more, bluds.' Raaf clenched his fist. 'Gimme yer gun, Inquisitor.'

He headed to the shattered, agonizing bodies on the broken altar.

'May they rest in peace.'

I closed my eyes and whispered the last litany at the faint sound of three quick shots.

'You don't have the guts yet.' He handed the weapon back to me.

'May the Emperor greet them at His side.'

'Even Inquisitors aren't brave enough not to cling to this pious nonsense. Not brave enough to accept everything comes to an end.'

'It would be better if there was nothing afterwards, sergeant. If most stories of the afterlife are to believe.'

'Better to fade to nothing than to continue perverted being as a nutty fragment of these piles of warp junk cultists call gods.'

'But the Emperor is still alive on Terra.'

'He used to walk among us once, true. But I don't know anyone who's seen him alive after the Heresy.'

He turned to the sacristy and stopped as if in disbelief. A large chunk of wall was missing, like it had been erased from reality, revealing an unlit stairway down. I turned on my flashlight and followed the marines into the secluded archives of the Sanctum.


	4. III

Cries and incantations from the outside died out as we descended the dusty steps. When we reached the massive metal doors of the topmost underground level, I looked at the control panel next to the lock.

'Shake a leg, bredren. Only reserve systems working, is like, for two hours at best.’

'You're kinda mint when no'one is watching.' Raaf slapped me on the back. 'Not quoting old dodderers from your Ordo or shouting about heresy.’

'Tell ye crew to stick it out for a quarter of an hour or so. The rosette must open all the doors here.’

We entered the dark halls of the library-keep filled with endless stalls of storage chip folders and rows of ancient tomes in transparent stasis containers. I haven't seen a collection of lore that big even in the Citadel of Uebotia. The Order of the Revelation was famous to be the most devoted and professional gathering of scholars dealing with languages and history. I hoped to use the newfound connection to do undercover research on the mysterious enemy I'd encountered in my previous venture.

As adrenaline was wearing off, I couldn't but think about the unpleasant reunion in the cathedral. Another suspicious coincidence, when first my friends disappear, then I get a case in the area with Imudon involved. It wasn't the first case of the Word Bearers attacking the Sisterhood but Imudon had chosen the right moment to be around.

Emergency red lamps were flickering over tall bookcases and cogitator servers in the inner halls close to the main keep. The poorly closed rift had overloaded the systems so that reserve generators had got exhausted ten times quicker than usually. We stopped before the last door to the best fortified Sanctum center where the survivors must have gathered, and I typed in my personal access code with a message for the Canoness to avoid any misunderstandings.

One of the Sisters opened the door and smiled as we stepped into the circle of electric light.

'Emperor bless you, Lady Inquisitor, Battle-Brothers. We've noticed you approaching on the auspex screens but were ready for the worst.’

'Please lead me to the Canoness, Sister, and find medications for the wounded warriors.’

Canoness Chrysopa was sitting at a cogitator desk under a large screen, trying to redistribute the last portions of energy between the few remaining outer shields. None of the turrets was working, three out of five shield generators were down to a quarter of their capacity. A violent blast shook the whole hall, and another green indicator turned red. Chrysopa looked up at me wearily, her swarthy face hollow-cheeked after a few sleepless nights.

'They will be here in less than an hour, my lady. Please lead out the soldiers and civilian workers if possible but leave us to perish with our biggest treasure.’

'Are suicidal tendencies a necessary condition to be accepted to the Order?' I smirked. 'Enough of your people have died for today.'

'We cannot leave the sacred library to be plundered or simply destroyed by the traitors.'

'They're after the holy book, Sister Mallada said. The Word Bearers seldom get any ideas apart from defiling devotional buildings. They pay no interest to data.'

'I will keep it by my side till my last breath.' She put both hands on an ornate case on her table.

'Strange how you've ever happened to get it. I've always thought relics are the point of Orders Pronatus.'

'This is the story from the days first Dialogous Sisters arrived to the sub-sector to study remains of the past and help the authorities to deal with the Drukhari threat. One of the local traders had just recovered a void ship drifting by with a large library on board. He'd claimed the vessel for himself but offered the books to the Order. Among countless tomes and data cards we found this priceless relic, dating back to the days of Heresy with no doubt. A still existing reminder of the times most think to be a mere myth.'

As I expected, the sergeant didn't listen to the story of devotion, giving out instructions for the other survivors instead. Less than half of them were military men, the rest being janitors, gardeners, infirmary medics and other personnel. Among those capable for action only the Sisters were clad in power armour and had bolters and plasma pistols at hand, the PDF men armed with lasguns only, their flak breastplates only good against cultists with cleavers or shovels.

At the next heavy blast all the remaining shields were brought down, and the air in the room cracked with crimson warp-lightnings. Younger Sisters around Chrysopa's desk recoiled, muttering litanies discordantly but the Canoness straightened up with no fear on her face. The Dark Apostle's monumental psychic projection glared at us from the center.

I stood still unable to take my eyes off of my pursuer's majestic visage. None of the other Chaos leaders I'd met before were that imposing and powerful. His eyes lit by red warp-light glowed like embers under the spiky halo of black steel, his armour was intricately inscribed with menacing passages from forbidden grimoires and adorned with twisting, leering daemon faces. Drawn by his enthralling might, I made a few steps forward and stopped next to his towering shape.

'Wretched slaves of the Carrion Lord, bow down for your power is naught before the greatness of Chaos,’ he bellowed.

'Your unholy sermons cannot sow terror among those who bask in His radiance.’ Chrysopa folded her hands in the sacred sign, and the projection flickered.

I crossed my arms and gave Imudon a smug smile.

'What a poker-faced pompous fellow you are, old man. You're such a shorty or you've just screwed up the scale?'

'Your time is running short, Inquisitor.’ The projection distorted, grew to grotesque proportions but then shrunk back to the original size. 'Neither you nor the Canoness will escape the wrath of the gods. Bend the knee now, lest your deaths be lasting and gruesome, and your petty souls be claimed by the powers you now spit on.'

'You're so dark. Thought you were more formidable though, with all the signature face tattoos, wearing horns.’

He glowered at me with enough anger to make a weaker heart stop.

'Stop clowning, Inquisitor. That is an insult to your rank as well as to the gods in whose name I have appeared before you.’

'Look, your worshipfulness, let's get one thing straight. I'm an Imperial Inquisitor and mind opinions of only one person.'

'The Emperor,' Chrysopa finally jumped in.

'Myself.' I winked at my furious nemesis.

'You are not obliged to believe in the Enthroned Corpse,’ he replied. 'Your Ordo was created to break the Ecclesiarchia's back.’

Chrysopa looked at me with grim mistrust.

'Look how she's ready to die for a thing your predecessors would deem utterly heretical.’

'Anyway it's hard to be even remotely as heretical as you,’ I snapped.

'This book is sacred, traitor.' Chrysopa squeezed the case lid with both hands. 'A few of the first saints sacrificed themselves to have it carried away from your accomplices.'

'Do you know whose hand wrote it?'

Canoness Chrysopa didn't answer.

'You will not wish to keep it anymore when you learn that. I saw it right after it had been finished by the author.'

Imudon stopped for a dramatic pause. I heard Chrysopa's gauntlets screech as she clenched her fists.

'He showed you the way you are following yet you deny him any respect for that. You despise him as the worst among heretics. His own Father, your corpse-god, made him kneel and repudiate his work of sincere adoration and devotion. He had to cast it away for you could pick it up as a mockery of the events that had caused the tragic rift. You know the name. Now be bold and pronounce it loudly so that everyone present hears it.’

'We've got it that you're a good boy and love your daddy,' I spoke before Chrysopa could take the bait. 'Go and find another sentimental souvenir from your golden years together.’

'The Emperor hears our plights regardless of your slander,’ Chrysopa said indecisively.

I nodded. 'If a thing works well, nobody cares a damn about what happened to the dude who made it.'

'Will you deny you are a promising Radical, Inquisitor?' His lips moved as if he was about to smile. 'Tyrants emerge and collapse but Chaos remains, and will stay even long after the very name of Terra is lost and forgotten.’

'Wrap it up, man. You'll get out of your sorcery credit soon.’

The projection faded and dissolved. Chrysopa rubbed her forehead with a sour expression of inner struggle. I tried to cope with the messy bunch of thoughts and emotions left after the encounter I'd dreaded and anticipated for so long. Imudon had been virtually around since the start of my career, and I realized his presence had become a default part of my everyday life. Sadly, I hadn't dared to ask him the very question I had in mind to avoid further suspicion from the Sisters but I was sure there would be another opportunity.

'You owe me, Mother Canoness.' I smiled at smitten Chrysopa as cheerfully as I could.

She sighed and shook her head.

'Never mind this jerk. He's delighted to talk a lot of nonsense and sneer at those who believe him. His damn profession. He killed my mentor and has caused me much trouble afterwards. By the way, while he was blabbering, the sergeant had led out all the civilians, soldiers and novices.'

'Leave me to die with that thing. With my truth.' Her tone was so bitter my heart sank. 'My staunch martyrdom will prove it. He will meet me... because the traitor was lying. He is alive and watching over us all.’

'He is. Just because everything would have fallen into utter mayhem otherwise.'

'Thank you. Take everyone to safety now. See you at His side.'

'He'd like you to live on and store more precious lore.'

'The others are no less able. My time has come. I will go up to the watch tower over the keep and blow it up as soon as they enter.'

We shook hands and exchanged the last greetings with signs of the Aquila. With a heavy heart I paced after the other Sisters leaving through a hidden door in one of the data stalls.

The long dusty corridor hadn't been used for decades if not centuries. Sister Meleoma, one of the Canoness' subordinate officers, showed us the exit on the map and sent a signal to Mallada and her team to meet us at the rally point. Sad for the loss of their leader, the Sororitas took Imudon's provocation very personally. Raised in their Scholas in wordless devotion to the Emperor and staunch believe in His truth, they reacted with bitter anguish to any challenge for their faith.

Meleoma led us out through a small door in the basement of a storage building in one of the nearby villages. It was already noon, as clear and sunny as yesterday, so we hoped to reach the closest town without massive attacks of the Night Lords. The Word Bearers and their cultist supporters were monomaniac in their desire to defile and destroy places of worship but with little interest towards looting and not enough forces for large-scale warfare.

After a brief rest the column of survivors left the village for the town, led by the Sisters. I joined the Ravens who brought the rear. Their wounded had got portions of stimulators in the keep and marched on with stoical perseverance, their fractured limbs supported by the suits of armour. Sadly, my trusty owl had been left in the treeline at the walls, and I had to put up with my trailer and supplies probably purloined.

When the column entered a conifer wood, Raaf suddenly stopped and made a sign to his squad.

'Run after the others,' I heard his voice in my vox bead.

I made a few steps aside but instead took cover under the roots of a fallen fir with my laspistol drawn. Three midnight blue shadows emerged from their hideouts and attacked the squad from different directions. The tactical marines had no melee weapons at hand, so even their strength in numbers didn't give them advantage over the ancient warriors who dodged direct shots with superhuman speed and prowess.

In a few seconds blood was running down the Ravens' breastplates ripped by a few slashes of lightning claws as if it was cardboard. There was something strange in their assault tactics. They targeted the healthy ones, not the wounded as their legion usually does. As if they'd been ordered to separate us from the group and ruin our morale to make us easy prey for Imudon. I'd heard much about Chaos warbands capturing Loyalists and breaking their will to replenish their numbers.

The traitors vanished as quickly as they'd appeared. Raaf examined the injuries and shook his head. The attack has left him almost unharmed but everyone in his squad was badly wounded by now, their armour damaged either by the First Acolyte's warp trickery or deep precise cuts in the vital parts.

I got out and returned to the squad.

'Why are you still here? I've told you to get away along with Meleoma and her men,' Raaf grunted. 'You're of no help here.'

'They'll get into trouble if I'm with 'em. Imudon hasn't lost his hope to finish me.'

'Innit. The bats will be back soon. They want us to shit our pants and then kill us if they're in a good mood, or capture if they aren't.'

'They haven't wounded you as badly as ye crew.'

'That's what sounds rotten.'

'I'll try to sneak back and drive the owl here. Take cover for you could shoot off the bats' wings. I'll be in time before nightfall.'

Right after the last words the vox connection was interrupted with a few beeps and statics noise. I took the bead out and checked the charge.

'Eavesdropping, sergeant,' I said but another voice replied instead.

'What fools we've been to let you away, Inquisitor. Don't bother to hobble back for your owl, just make a dozen steps aside from the path towards the ravine. Imudon sends you his greetings. As for us, pray to any entities you worship that our ways never cross in future.'

I waved at the Ravens and slipped between two tall firs to the shaded slope overgrown with brambles. Down there, at the bottom of a deep gully, my owl's radars flickered red through the greenery.

'Count to eight and walk down. Farewell.' The vox beeped, and the previous connection was restored.

'Wazzup there?' Raaf stopped next to me with his bolter aimed at the rustling bushes.

'The bats have arrived here in the owl. They said goodbye and... reminded me of the Dark Apostle again.'

'I've got you have your own love story but we aren't his damn lasses,' the sergeant grumbled.

'At least we have the owl.'

'With Imudon's tracker or bomb inside. He needs us alive for his plans.'

'We're not screwed yet. Follow me. Do your auspexes show any presence of sentient life?'

Raaf shrugged his shoulders and started descending, scanning the area for any signs of trouble. I reached out with my psyker glance, but the trail of the Night Lords had mostly faded as they'd left a while ago. No warp-touched item had been left behind either.

The owl door was wide open, and the grisly emblem of the Eighth had been hastily drawn in blood on the inside of the door. I rushed in and sat at the control panel. Damn. As before, the owl systems had been blocked by the intruders, though in a more primitive way than on the beach. A large pop-up window with eerie Chaotic sigils covered three quarters of the screen, and the menu didn't work.

'Just don't kill me for another portion of bad news, buddies,' I addressed the marines. 'Looks like we gonna stay here. As for the good news, we have instruments and a bunch of good weapons in the safe.'

Sorry for another burglary, Fluffster, I thought as Raaf busted off the metal door and pulled out the cricetid's repair case and his volkite gun.

'Safe. You should have taken it out earlier.'

'The problem is, it's not mine. But the rainy day has come.'

'We'll repair the armour as we can, and you find us booze as we're yer guests.'

I took a few bottles of brandy out of Uncle's minibar and found Sister's medicines and surgical tools.

'Hope you know what to do with this.'

Remembering medical lessons by my mentor's field surgeon, I helped Raaf to sanitize and bind the marine's wounds. I brought a few solid branches from the pile of windfall next to the owl to put splints on their broken limbs.

Tired after the treatment of our injured, we left them to tinker with their armour and went out for a brief rest. Raaf took off his helmet and scratched his shaven temple. He sat onto the grass in a stripe of sunlight falling from between tall pines, his face weary but calm. I leaned on the owl wall looking at the bright leaves waving in the afternoon breeze.

'Like the old forests on Kiavahr,' he finally broke the silence. 'I got there as a teen already. Scout training. Propa mint after the city.'

'You come from a worker family?'

'Aye, a chavvy neighborhood.' He smiled. 'Cannot get rid of some old words even a century later, as you've heard. Living blocks of a factory, smoggy and kinda shabby. We've never been rich but one summer, when my lil bro was born, even managed to spend a well good fortnight at the seaside. But then dad got injured at work and died, and mum had to pick up another job to raise us. I started taking menial tasks since ten, was hanging out with the lil fellow after work. When there were hours off, I ran to the slagheaps in the outskirts to me gang. Roughhousing, trying moonshine and snouts. One day, we clashed with the gang of the western blocks. One of 'em got a shank and cut two of me bluds but I punched him in the mug so hard he rolled down the slagheap. Right after that, a black shadow appeared from behind the junkyard piles.'

'That's how you've been chosen.'

'Innit. Late Chapter Master Severax paid me mum enough to send me bruva to study for an enginseer. A well good man he was, but the blue-mug twat croaked him.'

I nodded with compassion.

'I lived in a Famulous orphanage till ten, and then it was bombed by Chaos worshippers.'

'That's where you've picked up that silly piety.'

'It really helps to have the Emperor as a protecting parent. Moreover, He doesn't meddle in my life like other parent substitutes.'

'Honest. To my mind, it's easier to live without all this stuff. We've never been fond of Him on Kiavahr and Deliverance. Aye, Master of Mankind, founder of the Imperium, but let past be past. He wasn't much kind towards us workers. It was Corax who put down the brazen parasites and made us free. He was no giant dude in golden armour but a man of the people who'd grown among us, a simple fellow like me or me bluds.'

'It's hard to live without them all. They were created for leading and inspiring but either went traitor, died or left for parts unknown.'

'Don't say so. The older workers were like, when the royal sons come back, the world will end. Not the best one but better than nothing.'

As the sun was getting lower, pine trunks and bushes above were lit by orange evening sunlight, and chilly wind started blowing down to the now-shaded ravine.

'I'll bring water for the evening while it's daytime. Wait for me here.' I took a small jerrican from the owl corner and climbed the grassy slope towards a sunlit glade.

There was a river and a small pond a hundred meters away, between the forest and the meadows surrounding the farming area. I sneaked between trees and bushes trying not to make noise, and crawled to a low part of the pond beach shielded from the open field by the sagging boughs of a large willow tree.

When I prepared to fill the jerrican, a sudden sound of voices made me startle. Two men in motley cultist garb were quarreling on the edge of a cliff across the pond. I hid in the branches watching them through the leaves. They were too far to hear the conversation but I wanted to see where they would go afterwards. In a few minutes one of them pointed at the meadows to the right, and both walked off with quick nervous steps.

I waited for a couple of minutes, filled the jerrican trying not to make noise and hid it in the greenery under the willow tree. Crouch-running through tall reeds along the shore, I got to the other side of the pond and started climbing a steep footpath. Atop the cliff I noticed movement in the distance, so I ducked into the nearby bushes before they could see me.

Across a dirt road to a small farm there was an unfinished storage building, decrepit and overgrown with weeds and small trees. Three more strangers were breaking their way through nettles and thistles with loud cusses. They squeezed through a hole in the rusty net fence and disappeared inside the building.

After a brief consideration I made up my mind. Nothing in my clothes or outlook cried inquisitor, even the carapace could as well be looted from a hapless PDFer. Hardly any of their leaders knew every petty cult member by sight. I wrapped the scarf around my face leaving only a small opening for the eyes.

The building was quiet and looked totally abandoned. I reached out with my mind carefully but didn't sense any presence of humans inside. The psychic trail lingered around but I couldn't find the right direction. I walked to the opposite side of the building looking for underground passages or sewage manholes. One of the windows was low over the ground, and I stood on a concrete block and managed to look in.

A narrow crumbling stairway connected the floors, its lower end descending to the basement. I pulled myself up and crawled into the window. The basement stank of mold, its visible part flooded with dirty water about up to the waist. As the lowermost steps had crumbled long ago, I had to jump down to the swamp.

Broad stripes of evening light fell on the surface through large gaps in the decrepit ceiling. Almost chest-deep in floating rubbish, I reached out again. There was no need in psychic search though - a male voice uttered a quick rapturous phrase in the distant end of the basement. 'Summoned... Final blessing...' was all I could here. If they were about to let a daemon into the Materium, I was already late, I thought with a bout of panic.

The voice was muffled by a few bolter shots, and desperate cries of agony echoed in the cellar. A few seconds later a hobbling man ran towards me, leaving a red trail of blood behind, tripping over underwater blocks and trash. Another blast flashed in the shade, and the man fell face down to the sump.

'The Inquisitor is here, my lord,' I pressed to the mossy wall at the sounds of a husky voice. 'Shall we capture her now?'

'Lead her to the hall,' Imudon answered from the unlit end. 'I want to exchange a few words with her.'


	5. IV

Two hulking Word Bearers aimed their cursed bolters at me before I could get to the exit. I raised both hands above my head with an intendedly sour face. One of them approached me and pushed me in the back. Stepping carefully by the uneven bottom of the rubbish lake, I followed the traitors to the dark back part of the basement. Not visible in the dark, there was a large door in the wall.

The first marine opened it, and we entered a circle or crimson light cast by a sphere of warpfire floating under the ceiling. Bloody corpses of cultists lay in neat piles arranged around the center where a glowing ethereal projection of Dark Apostle Imudon was contemplating the disgusting carnage.

'Cannot say I really missed you, man.' I shook my head.

'I've been watching every second of your wretched life, Inquisitor.' His intimidating stare made me step back.

'Be so kind to look away when I'm in the bathroom.'

'Do you see the majestic offering? All of them have come for their final blessing, and their souls have been claimed by their real masters.'

'A lousy advertisement for the service to Chaos.'

'It's an honour to give your soul away for the awe-inspiring plans of the gods. Their worthless lives have become bricks in the gods' warp-built shrine. No one belongs to himself anymore when claimed by the great powers.'

'I doubt the Emperor is ready to give me up.'

'Mindless being, how can a rotting corpse protect you from the mighty gods? They defeated Him in His last fight, and the Lords of Terra are too cowardly to admit He's long dead.'

'You're not the first to tell me about that today. I'd rather hear what have you done with my team, you sick bastard.'

'Look there.'

The sphere of unearthly fire unfurled into a flickering disc, and tongues of fire formed a blurred image. A female figure in power armour in a small room. She was holding a chest in both hands, and I recognized Canoness Chrysopa. A tall shape of a bareheaded marine appeared before her, and she pressed a button on the wall. Nothing happened. The intruder grabbed her by the throat, and the chest fell down to the floor. He picked it up, then dragged the limp body of the Sororita out of the room. The disc collapsed with a bright flash, and the fiery sphere soared up again.

'The First Acolyte has taken the book and the captive.'

'You mean you've somehow done the same to the mine? If they're still alive, looks like I'll join them soon. But if not, take out the unholy athame and spill my blood right here for the pleasure of your filthy gods.'

'There is something for you to be discovered upon your return. Only then you will follow my messenger to the place most mortals see but once. Take care to choose the right way when the gods gaze upon you at the ancient altar as old as sentient life itself.'

'I'd advise you to celebrate your victory over me for some time. We're both worn and need to have a rest from each other. Such toxic relationships are bad for the mental health.'

'Inquisitors are truly shameless and discourteous nowadays.' He looked at me like a school teacher reproaching a naughty pupil. 'The desire to have the last word doesn't work on your reputation.'

Before I could answer, his ethereal shape faded. The sphere started growing again, opening as a giant maw. My captors headed to the flickering portal as if I wasn't there. I paced back while the place was relatively safe.

When I climbed out to the field, the sun had set, and evening fog was falling over the pond and the vast meadows. I took off the drenched coat and descended to the reeds by the steep slope slippery with twilight dew. The jerrican was still there under the spreading willow, so I picked it up and hurried to the owl, swatting at mosquitoes.

Raaf was sitting on the steps, half-asleep. At the sound of steps he stretched himself and rubbed his eyes.

'Orite, lass. You look like a floater from the bottom level of an underhive.'

'I've been in quite a funny adventure. Is everything fine?'

'Well good. I've just taken a minute's nap. Are there cultists?'

'Not anymore. Imudon has had them slain to teleport his men back to their vessel, or their world. This josser is a man to make your head hurt. I've talked to him a while ago but the warp reek can be heard even here.'

I stopped, struck by a sudden bad feeling.

'Sergeant, check up ye crew right now. It's got so quiet here.'

'They were finishing all possible repairs when I fell asleep.'

'Just do that.'

He shrugged his shoulders but got up and disappeared in the trailer. A minute later he appeared again, his face frozen with shock and anger.

'You've dragged us into your bloody squabble, you nicker. They're nowhere to be found.'

'That's the discovery he mentioned. I can tell you a comforting idea if only you don't tear off my head for that.'

'Go on.'

'I'm sure we'll be busted as well and join our crews quite soon, when utterly smitten and depressed by the accident. The poison in the honey is the fact we'll be sacrificed.'

Raaf squeezed my neck and seated me on the porch next to him.

'Let's wait here then. There's still some booze in the flask, so we'd better meet him with sufficient fuel capacity.'

'You've learned a few smart words since you left the living blocks.'

'Life has forced me.' He gave me the stink eye.

First stars lit on the sky above, and the ravine got pitch-dark. The creeping cold from the river was growing stronger, and I hugged my knees shivering in the soaked clothes. Too cold for a summer night. Unnaturally cold.

White spots appeared on the grass, spreading further like mold or hoarfrost. I startled at a subtle disturbance in the warp. Psychic frost has covered the grass around the owl, and crimson sparks flickered in the air as the reality started tearing apart. The lightnings flashed brighter, weaving into a swirling net of flame.

It parted with a deafening thunderbolt, and we both got to our feet with weapons at ready. Through the opening portal we saw a distorted, bloodstained corridor of a horrible Chaotic vessel, its walls marked with phosphorous twisting runes, daemon faces sneering and grimacing where auspexes should have been.

A stocky woman in heavy armour appeared before us, flanked by two nightmarish giants stitched from decomposing parts of disfigured corpses and bound with heavy chains with glowing sigils. Each one was a mere vial for abominable daemonic essences sealed within the repulsive frame. Crimson runes were etched on the woman's rugged face, a bloodstained patch covered her left eye. She approached us with a few quick brisky steps. I recoiled at the sickening psychic stench of taint and rot.

'Just slept it off, you hoodlum,' she addressed the sergeant in a mocking husky voice. 'Put your guns down, corpse-worshippers. That doesn't work against me, and the fellows will screw both if you go on showing off here. Shake a leg, I'm already frigging tired after the second trip here in a row.'

She turned back, and the daemonhosts reached for us with their bloated, decaying hands. Raaf put on his helmet with reserved determination. I followed him in quickly just to avoid the tainted monsters' grip.

'Keep in mind your buddies are in Imudon's cages now,' the shipmistress grumbled over her shoulder. 'Welcome on board, feel at home in this masterpiece of sorcerous craft.'

I wondered at the obvious disgust in her tone when she mentioned her vessel.

'You'll bring us to the great shrine,' I said.

'You, yes. The black fellow will join his squad in the quarries. The machinery needs more soul-fuel to keep working. His armour is pretty good as well. A few legionnaires will have a shootout to take it.'

We stepped by the uneven, mutated deck trying not to meet the gaze of lesser daemons trapped in the walls. More daemonhost sailors got in our way, the little what had remained of their human form uncanny and sickening to look at. One of the halls we passed through was full of ragtag cultists, no one like another. Slaughter cult swordsmen painted with blood from head to toe, disfigured results of Chaos apothecaries' geneseed experiments, blistered stinky dispensers of Nurgle's pest blessings.

'Most of this scum will be finished by their own folks,' the woman said scornfully. 'They're striving to get to the shrine as if they get the horns of a daemon prince on the arrival.'

She stopped before a closed door guarded by two more possessed members of her crew.

'Toss the blackbird to the other scum and lock the wench in a separate cell over the cultist decks,' she spat out the last order and left for the dimly lit bridge we could see in the end of the corridor.

Heavy doorleaves creaked open, the sound sharp as a desperate shrill. One of the daemonhosts pushed Raaf in the back, the other grabbed me by both arms with his ice-cold fingers. My heart sank, my soul cowered in panic as the sealed daemon touched my mind. Babbling, muttering voices in the ears were getting louder, red circles danced before my eyes. Haywired and worn, I let the hideous servant drag me past yelling, brawling crowds of Chaos worshippers and dirty pits with terrified slaves. The captives wore no fetters as there was nowhere to escape from the cursed ship lost in the fickle tides of the Immaterium.

The decks were twisted under peculiar angles, multiple pathways formed the most grotesque patterns, and in the center of the surreal maze there was a spiral stairway of black stone winding up to such indescribable heights its top steps were lost to sight. Even the most depraved of the cultists didn't dare even to get close to this place of sullen silence. It took an eternity to ascend the slippery, rune-engraved steps veiled in shifting aether smoke. The higher I climbed the ladder, the brighter the abominable symbols glowed in the thickening murk. Everything beneath had been long lost in the evernight of the sorcerous prison. A stray thought of leaping down to my doom popped up in my head but the daemon's backlash almost paralyzed me.

A hissing voice sounded inside my head. 'Only the master of the shrine has the right to decide whether you should live or die, pathetic mortal.'

I stopped at the topmost step where nothing could be seen but the glimmering sigils and flickering warp-flame in the daemonhost's empty sockets. The sailor's cold hand suddenly pushed me off the ladder, and everything dissolved. I was floating in the middle of nowhere, in absolute darkness filled with ghostly murmurs, unable to move as if I had no body at all.

As I closed my eyes whispering every prayer I knew, feverish visions flooded my mind. The shrine was around again, not solemn and empty as before, but filled with ecstatic priests of the hungry gods and their enraptured, delirious flock. Chilling wild canticles echoed in the high columns rising to the colossal vaults above. Cultists and slaves alike were led to the altars of crude rock in the end of the colossal nave before a row of gates adorned with blasphemous symbols of the warp. Some of them were vaguely known by inquisitorial manuals and treatises, some were completely obscure. All the gates were wide open but the tallest one, not carved in the black wall but growing out of the rock solid, crimson runes on its molten surface similar to the ones on Imudon's armour. Formless naked aether was shifting obnoxious colours and shapes as more and more living offerings were mutilated, flayed, slain in the name of the daemonic entities the fools worshipped as gods.

I shivered and wept, unable to shield myself from the shrine's mortifying aura. A realm of horror and torment, its unearthly atmosphere could be likened to the vertiginous maze of the Casbah only. Against my will I had to look on, but then my gaze slipped upwards to uneven wall ledges over the nave. In the quivering unlight of countless crimson wisps I saw thousands of ironwork cages fixed on the edges of the rocks. Big and small, some empty, some with drained captives within.

As the cages got closer, I felt my eyes drawn to two cages separated by a stalagmite column. In the bigger one, four very familiar figures cuddled up to shut themselves off from the blasphemous cacophony beneath. My team, ragged and haggard, waiting for their inevitable death in another ceremony of daemon worship. The only captive in the smaller cage was a skinny woman in a torn monastic habit crusted with blood. She lay face down on the floor but when I looked at her, she raised her head, as if disturbed by the touch. I was shocked when I recognized her. The once brilliant, now slandered and backtalked by almost all who knew her. Plodia Interpunctella, the blank spoiled child of the Ordo.

Terrified by the revelations, I summoned up the last of my strength and cried out to the Emperor from the depth of the abyss. The vision started losing contours and fading. But then Imudon's shape appeared before me instead. His face was peaked and worn when he stared at me, and I felt his desperate determination as he spoke.

'I have done no harm to your retinue, Inquisitor, waiting for your final decision. You may try to fool me but it is my turn to make demands. If you bend the knee to the gods before the faithful, I will set them free along with you.'

'Network marketing, Chaos style.' I sighed sadly. 'Bring five more friends and get a few free tentacles.'

'Bring five believers, and the gods will not turn you into a Chaos Spawn today,' his half-smile was grim. 'Even ordinary Inquisitors as insignificant as you matter. You're only a bunch in the Galaxy, and have the greatest degree of freedom and authority. Become a messenger of the supreme will of the Four and accept their gifts to grow over your sheriff position.'

'I'll give it a thought. I'm your captive anyway now.'

'My guest. Meet you at the gates soon.'

The visions retreated, and I was back to the black void again. Lost in its blind depth, I couldn't count minutes and hours anymore as time was nonexistent in the tainted Immaterium.

A rude, husky shout pulled me out of the oblivion. I found myself standing on the top step over the decks veiled in darkness. The shipmistress was there, her eye patch removed, an orb of shifting warpfire glaring at me in the place of a missing eye, dried blood drops stuck to the corner like tears.

'What are you staring at, beagle? I'm a beauty like that. You cannot be a warpseer otherwise,' she snapped at me.

'A sorcerer burnt out my buddy's eyes to make her a seer.'

'Your Emperor does that to almost any of your astropaths. As for me, the eye is the best I had to pass through to get my job.'

'I don't care a damn about your filthy career.'

'You're one to talk about career, you little brat. You'll be ready to kiss the shrine master's ass once the shadows tear off your carapace and bloody you up.'

'Are we already there?'

'That's why I've taken you out of your cell. Did you like this piece of ancient murk stored within the vessel entirely woven from twisted aether?'

'You'd better tell me where's my friend now, bootlicker skank.'

'I don't care about him much. He might be used by the lord of the shrine as all unbelievers, but now he'll be taken by the taskmaster of the quarries to power the rock crusher. Shut up and follow me to the bridge.'

Like before, I had to pass through numerous halls and corridors filled with cultist scum from a hundred worlds where tribal warriors in furs sat next to rich space traders in power armour. The first I saw on the bridge was Raaf's black armoured shape surrounded by a band of Chaos worshippers. The Raven's wrists bound behind his back and legs shackled with enchanted chains similar to the daemonhosts' fetters, he was only turning his head left and and right, as if paralyzed by sorcery or despair. Cultists shoved him and spat on him shouting insults to the Imperium and the Emperor.

The wall next to him lit with crimson warpfire, and hot malodorous wind blew in from the portal. Ridges of barren rocks lasting a solid wall against the dim dusky sky. An imposing Word Bearer in battered dark red armour overgrown with spikes and tusks entered the ship, followed by a Dark Mechanicus adept carrying a glowing staff with a screeching daemon confined in the pommel.

'This one will work even better than his buddies.' The traitor nodded his horned helmet. 'As for the riffraff, I don't need that many overseers. The weaker among them will be sent to the mines.'

'We've been promised...' one of the cultists started, but the tech-priest interrupted him.

'Kill one of the overseers to take their place, wretch.'

'Surprised by the lack of discipline here,' I said to the warpseer.

'The gods despise the weak and never care about whose souls to devour. They need lives, not stone from the quarries. The only way to rise through the ranks is to please the Four with a due offering. Even the lowliest of slaves dreams about ascension, and even the highest of priests is never safe here. No one has friends where only another's death lets you live longer. Only Imudon's warhost is an exception. If any of them is assaulted, they decimate the locals sparing no one.'

Another cultist, a bulky hunchback in a long torn coat with a hood pulled over his face, gave Raaf a rough shove, and the marine staggered and made an uneasy step forward. He walked on slowly like a sick or drunk man, totally different from the usual swift pace of his peers. They must have drugged him to avoid problems.

'You'll go the other way.' The warpseer nudged me in the side and pointed at a similar portal opening on the opposite wall.

She slit her wrist with a small black knife and painted a bloody sigil on my breastplate where the sacrificial mark had been. Sharp pain squeezed my heart, a disgusting memory of the night in the cave.

'That's your mark to be seen by those who're eager to attack you. You belong to the sacrificial lot, not for the commoners to slay.'

'A dubious privilege.'

'Shut up and get outta my ship.'

I closed my eyes and stepped out onto the rocky ground. When I looked back, there was but a faint trace of the cursed ship's presence. The twisted world was no normal planet of the material realm; its surface distorted by the warp was a giant bowl enclosed in the mountain ridges, every path going to the center where the monstrous shrine floated in the hot air, anchored to the earth by messy crumbling stonework of aisles and extension buildings. Thousands if not millions of slaves were swarming like ants all over the human-built walls, hauling stones to repair the neverending damage. Every moment someone fell down in exhaustion, unable to do the useless work anymore, and was bricked in in the masonry.

There was no sun or moon or stars above. Dark clouds of greasy smoke rushed swirling across the maroon sky over the lifeless wastelands of crimson and black rock. My first time on a daemon world, I was unable to tell where matter ended and warp began. I walked on hastily past loitering cultists and quarreling bands, some even tried to intercept me but recoiled at the sight of the emblem. A gang of teens armed with pieces of rock had brought down a decorated priest, kicking and hitting their bleeding victim with desperate fury. A lone fighter with Khornate tattoos was carrying a bunch of freshly severed heads holding them by the hair. Small spheres of warpfire danced around a sorcerer floating meters above ground.

The shape of the shrine in the distance was growing, soon it overshadowed everything else defying all laws of realworld physics. I tried to turn left and right, run backwards but the shrine still loomed over me in every direction. Most annex buildings were the size of a massive cathedral by itself, open doors and windows unlit but still animated by warp denizens stirring in the dark. Lesser ones, dirty and smoke-stained, were inhospitable home to the hordes that populated the daemon world.

Sheer warp was flowing out of the spectral temple transfusing the fabric of reality, deafening the already worn mind with daemonic cacophony. My heart was pounding like after a long race, even the very feeling of reality was getting lost in growing vertigo and weakness.

A slave slipped from a crumbling stone cornice on the roof of an extension building and crashed at my feet along with a few rock blocks. I crouched down next to the broken man who tried to get up, wordless pleas or prayers on his lips. An overseer pushed me rudely so I tumbled down to the ground but jumped back when he noticed my sigil. He grabbed the slave by the neck and dragged him back to the building. Before I could get up, he hurled the dying man into the dark chasm of the entrance. Only a weak echo of agony reached my soul.

Another step, and I found myself standing before the gates that could let in a battle barge. Cultists were going in with their offerings, ready for the oncoming rites, battered trembling captives were herded to the nave by masked priests in rune-inscribed cloaks.

I stopped on the threshold, reluctant to enter the place of taint and terror. A tall armoured silhouette appeared from behind, his gauntlet touched the sign on my carapace but when I looked up at him, his face was a blob of darkness with two crimson sparks in the place of his eyes. I raised both hands to fold them in the sign of the Aquila but the shadow warrior grabbed my wrists, and my arms got limp and numb at his chilling touch.

A familiar presence reached my cowering mind. Imudon, the formidable lord-prelate of the heretic warhost was striding through the crowd of worshippers with unhurried dignity, leaning on his accursed crozius topped with a glowing Star of Chaos and adorned by scrolls of unholy hymns and grisly trophies. Backpack torches cast reddish light on his angular stern face, carved skulls and trophy helmets stared at me from the pikes over his shoulders. An embodiment of overpowering will, even more fitting the image of Chaos Legions dreaded and hated by the citizens of the Imperium than a wastrel like Aphedron or a rugged warlord like Aspersum.

'Welcome to my lands, Inquisitor,' he bellowed.

I froze up, fascinated as a rabbit before a snake, my gaze fixed on his majestic shape. He waved his hand slowly, and I made a mindless step forward into the colossal nave.


	6. V

Recalling scraps of litanies to recompose myself, I approached the bulky shape of my nemesis. My psyker-sight almost blinded in the domain of the Neverborn, I couldn't tell whether it was another illusion.

'The projection's quality much better than in the library, it's laudable for a man as ancient as you to learn from your mistakes.' I smiled and reached out, ready to see my fingers slip through the fleshless image.

He caught my hand before I could touch his cuirass. The first meeting in real life since the unexpected turn of my career, and I had hoped I'd meet it with better strength and armaments.

'That's not honest, old man. You don't give me a slightest chance.'

'None of you pitiful mortals stand any chance against the power of the Four. You're but temple property, so I have to take you back to use you as intended.'

'As a living auspex or bomb, I do remember.'

'Who watches over the watchmen?' He looked at me with irony. 'The yours have been more than willing to resort to our power since the birth of your Ordos. And the wisest of them realised no one is able to win a victory against the powers older and greater than the human race. Warmaster Horus could have reigned over the galaxy in prosperity bestowed by the gods. Have you heard about the Horusians, or the cowards of your institution have wiped out every memory of them?'

I recalled my first textbook on the history of the Inquisition. They have been banished from the Imperium, confronted by Lady Stalia von Dressen for dabbling in unholy worship.'

'But you do not know why they decided to resort to the power of the Immaterium. Lady Moriana, one of the most prominent among her peers, was obsessed by the idea of resurrecting the husk on the Throne and was ready to use even the riskiest things to make her dream come true. She ventured into the depth of the Eye of Terror searching for answers. Soon she was completely ridden of her illusions when she found out what had driven the man worshipped as God by you weaklings. Her followers, inspired by her discoveries, decided to go the Warmaster's path and create a Divine Avatar that could guide humanity by the will of the gods. Much worthier of adoration than the psyker-eating corpse that will crumble to dust the moment His Throne is switched off.'

'The Emperor protects, and your gods only demand.'

'They are offended by your lack of faith and trust, when you bite their giving hands. Khorne is not only bloodshed, but bravery and power, Tzeentch is not only deception but wisdom and knowledge, Nurgle is not only pestilence but mercy and compassion...'

'Slaanesh is not only overdose and the clap but a rock hard stiffy,' I blurted out before he could finish his solemn sermon.

My cheeks blushed at the rude joke I'd just dared to tell to my nemesis's face. Imudon lifted me off the ground by the throat, his teeth clenched in cold fury.

'That was your wretched worm of a mentor who taught you all these dirty japes of involuntary celibates, ill-bred brat. He tried to mock me on that night but pissed and shat his pants when I gripped him by the throat and snapped his neck.'

I clawed on the ceramite-clad fingers that strangled me, coughing helplessly.

'Take it easy, man. You're indeed so dark,' I wheezed out when he released me.

'Another imbecile phrase, and I will give you to the First Acolyte in order to teach you humility in the undervaults. Shameless ones like you get meek as lambs after a while in his company.'

'Enough blabbering. You're gonna finish me anyway.'

'Leaving you alive will benefit both of us, Inquisitor. You will only have to swear the oath and do my small commissions from time to time. Apart from that, you will enjoy your freedom in the company of your dear friends. Ordinary Inquisitors, Commissars, tech-priests are the best to plant into the ranks of the Imperium.'

'But I won't be the owner of my soul anymore.'

'As if you are now. The fabled afterlife by the side of your Carrion Lord is but a lie concocted by the Ecclesiarchia to attract new believers who would bring them money for the common fear of death. In truth, every soul is claimed by the gods as soon as a man is born, but the faithful get princely state in their domain, and those deceived by the Imperial Cult become mere fodder and playthings for the Neverborn. As for your faith, it goes not to the rotting enthroned corpse, but to the warp where it feeds the gods you hate and despise.'

'Honest unbelievers like Raaf at least don't rack the brain as much as you,' I said with a sigh.

'First I will take your friends one by one and have them subjected to the First Acolyte's excruciations in front of you. If your heart is cold enough to let them all die, there will be no mercy for you.'

'How many Imperials have you lured to your service?'

'More than you can guess. Plodia Interpunctella, the blank who rescued you, denounced her false faith and threw herself on my kindness. Soon she will find a place in the ranks of the faithful during the same ceremony as you.'

'By kindness you mean starving and tormenting her. Wonder why you need a blank at all.'

'She more than deserves it, a traitorous cowardly harlot. Blank or not, anyone can pledge their life to Chaos. Or you believe the outdated popular assumption that blanks do not have souls? If you manage to leave this place, ask your superiors about Leilani Mollitas and the price she paid.'

'Curiosity killed the cat.' I shook my head.

'But satisfaction brought it back.'

Talking and arguing, we passed through the nave lit by uncounted crimson flames. The vault was so high all I could see above were endless walls strewn by sparks of unlight. There were shaded side passages no one dared to approach, half-open doors behind long rows of columns. I peeped through the exits, puzzled by the changing landscapes beyond. None of them belonged to the barren daemon world: city districts, lush rainforests, rolling waves of a stormy ocean.

'Don't you harbour illusions of escaping the shrine.' Imudon pulled me away from the doors by the shoulder. 'Most of these enticing views are mere mirages, reflections in the warp. Only a well-trained psyker of immense power or a true champion of Chaos is able to travel through the portals in relative safely.'

'I'm not gonna leave alone anyway.'

A small warp-flask of smoky glass on his belt flickered red. Imudon tore it off and waved at me so I followed him.

'My lord!' I heard an agitated voice from the flask. 'A transgression unheard of for decades. An insult to the warhost. To the legion.'

'What is going on?' Imudon glowered at me as I pricked up my ears.

He stopped at the column and raised the flask above his head. A burst of glowing smoke burst out of the bottleneck, filling the air with brimstone stench. The smoke cloud formed a transparent silhouette of the tech-priest who'd come to the cursed ship.

'I was accompanying Lord Foreman to the quarries, Your Eminence. He ordered to strip the captive of his armour in front of the engine. The hunchback undid the fetters, but the loyalist didn't try to escape. But when the cultist took off the helmet... there was nothing inside. An empty suit programmed to perform some simplest moves.'

'It was quite predictable that the proximity of pure warp could make marines manifest the hidden psychic abilities of their gene-sires. Check it up once again, this is but a trick for sure, he's somewhere around trying to shadow-walk. But it is not that horrible to be called a grave insult.'

'I haven't finished yet, Your Eminence. Once the helmet was removed, the suit tumbled down, and Lord Foreman leaned over to examine it. This very moment... the hunchback stabbed him in the neck with a sacrificial blade. Other cultists scattered in great terror, and the assaulter stabbed Lord Foreman again.'

'What the...' Imudon gasped. 'There should not have been any cultist priests in the group, and no priest in his right mind could have attacked a legionnaire. Treason within the warhost.'

'Worse, my lord. The trespasser stood upright, and I saw he was no mortal man. The captive Raven Guard sergeant, he's left his armour as a bait for...'

'Have you warned the guarding squads of the docks?'

'I've decided to warn you first of all. I'm in the quarry control room now. I'm sorry... I don't dare to leave it. Both slaves and overseers have abandoned their jobs, they're in panic after one of your men was slain, trying to escape the decimation.'

Distant noise from the entrance was growing louder. Crowds of worshippers came into motion, some advancing towards the altar part, some running to the walls.

'I am going to deal with that myself. No one among the officers can be trusted till I found out the details. Only a traitor in our own ranks could have let the captive get a black blade.'

'It can be dangerous for you, my lord.'

Imudon shook the flask, and the projection dissolved. He grabbed me by the hand pointing at a dimly lit niche in the wall next to a side passage. A flask like the one he was holding was mounted on a stalagmite casting maroon light on the engraved vault.

'Stay here till I'm back. While you are wearing this sign, you cannot leave the place but no harm comes to you from the cultists. If someone else, an unbound daemon or a legionnaire, threatens you, call me up immediately. The flask obeys those with the mark. Release your inner sight and imagine me to reach me.'

I sat down to the floor looking at his broad-shouldered shape heading away to the vestibule. All I could say, I was impressed by the talk and puzzled by the accident. Raaf was alive and acting, and I couldn't miss the chance to contact him.

When Imudon was lost to sight, I approached the flask with caution and put my hand on its glowing side. Something repulsive and malevolent stirred inside, touching my aura. I felt brimstone odour leaking out. Well, way too radical like the tainted shard. Good that Raaf didn't care much about heretical technology.

I imagined his face but nothing happened. I tried better, channeling in all meagre psychic forces I had. The daemonic essence bound inside answered with a malicious giggle. Possibly, it worked only when the other part had a similar flask at hand. But then I recalled the tactics preferred by the Raven Guard. Infiltration and invisibility. He should have taken the Word Bearer's armour to blend in with Imudon's marines. I tried to recall the late Foreman's horned helmet and tusky armour. Glowing smoke oozed from the bottleneck, too weak to give a clear image, but soon I saw the barely visible outline of the marine lingering against the wall.

'Sergeant, do you copy? Volentia speaking.'

He slapped on his flask not bothering to answer.

'Not a trap, innit.'

He finally took it from the belt on hearing a familiar word.

'None of these church boys and their warp pets speaks the language of the slurs.' I heard his chuckle muffled by the dynamics. 'That's you indeed. If only they haven't forced you to work against me. I've already scared the locals so they'll rush into the shrine and blow it to hell. We're all free now.'

'No chattering, quicker. Drive them not to here, to the docks. They're guarded by the warhost squads. We have to get to the ships. Get rid of this armour, Imudon knows everything. Come to the nave before the sacrifice to drag us all out. I'll arrange...'

I managed to give out the brief commands before the image faded completely, the daemon tool too hard to wield for a weak psyker like me. I wasn't even sure whether Raaf heard everything but I'd used the communication instrument to the max. Soon Imudon would hurry back to complete the rite before the daemon world got mad after the scattering of workers. He would bring my crew to kill them in front of me, so the preparations would give us all time. I relied more on Plodia's ability to counter warp influence if only she found courage and strength to strike while Imudon would be busy uttering prayers. Raaf's possible shadow-walk wasn't too likely to take it into account, so I was sure he would change into a traitor private's suit of armour when they assaulted the docks.

When I turned away from the flask, I noticed another legionnaire in dark red armour standing in the corner behind me. He had appeared without any disturbance in the warp let alone sound of steps. He had no helmet on, his face was slightly shaded but clearer than the first time I'd seen him. The First Acolyte, the one who'd carved the mark over my heart, whom the Dark Apostle recalled to scare his opponents. Strangely, he didn't look as creepy as his superior. His face was youthly and calm, the coy, shy smile didn't fit the image of a boogeyman at all. His armour was newer and more modest than Imudon's. Like his master, he had no visible tattoos or mutations.

'Hello, Lady Inquisitor,' he crooned bowing his head, and his glossy pleated hair slipped to his breastplate from the decorated pauldron. 'Hope I wasn't a nuisance while you were talking to your friend.'

'You'll tell Imudon now.' I leaned back to the wall, horrible images of tortures and rituals already in my mind.

'Why should I? The gods have let that mess happen to quench his pride and his desire to riot against them.'

'He sounded like a firm believer.'

'He repeats holy words without due respect for the Four, my lady.'

'And I and my team have got caught in these intrigues.'

'The gods want to expel him from the sanctuary to give it to a better worshipper of their majesty. They have chosen your Raven friend as an unwitting tool of their will. He isn't tainted with the despicable cult of the Carrion Lord. You shouldn't be afraid of Imudon anymore.'

'He said I should be afraid of you.'

'True, I'm not that condescending to those who offend the gods. But you belong to the temple, my lady. The oncoming sacrifice won't please them. He doesn't have patience and good will to make you and the other worthy candidates embrace your destiny. He will order me to kill your retinue, then slits your throat in pathetic impatience.'

'You suggest bending the knee before that happens. You'd better told that in the beginning.'

'Not now. I might let you leave this world as the gods still need you alive for a purpose I don't know yet. Not alone, of course. But a price must be paid.'

'Whom I have to give you?' I already had an idea of debts and payments in the world of traitors.

'I swear you that won't be any of your close friends. Not even your recent acquaintances. A completely indifferent person. I'll appear before you or send my messenger with a sacrificial blade when the payment is needed. Then I'll erase your mark, and the gods will let you live for free. You may even continue working at your present workplace.'

I didn't know whether he could be trusted. He seemed kinder than Imudon but was even more fanatically devoted to the Ruinous Powers than Imudon himself. That could be a trap as well but I was already down to the bottom to fear risk. I should force him to swear by his filthy gods whose will he wouldn't dare to break.

'Let your gods witness your oath,' I grumbled.

'I vow to let you get back to realspace before the Great Four and let their wrath fall upon my head if I deceive you.'

'You're so eager to take solemn vows.'

'Your turn. On the security of your soul.'

'I cannot pledge my soul to the case as I've already entrusted it to the Emperor.'

'So your life.'

'Deal.' I looked around as the very ground under my feet was shaking, and panicked yells and noise had got so loud they filled the whole temple.

'Behold the exasperation of the gods, my lady. When minutely offerings have stopped, the shrine's hunger becomes visible. Millions of slaves have been toiling here for millennia not only giving their worthless lives to the Powers but constructing more and more passages to the real world. The great time of change is closer than ever, as great as the Old War itself.'

'Our interests diverge here.'

'It doesn't matter as long as you respect our treaty, my lady. You're a person of honour, I hope, and won't tell a single word about our amicable talk even to the closest friends.'

'What if I change my mind?'

'Let me take you out for a little stroll while my superior is still away.'

He pointed to the opposite row of columns and held out his hand. I took his gauntlet with caution but felt no psychic disturbance at all. Only a dozen steps through the crowd, and we were already away from the niche, standing before the horrendous altars covered in dried blood. The tall doors were trembling as if shaken by a strong wind, blasphemous emblems of dark gods shifting and flickering on the carved surface.

On the edge of the altar part there was a dark plain door without any signs or sigils. A few shadow guards were walking around to keep the cultists away from the place. On the sight of the priest they all stopped at once and turned their featureless faces towards us, their spooky eyes smouldering like the crimson wall lights.

'The true denizens and warriors of this ancient sanctuary.' The First Acolyte nodded at them. 'They will lead numerous armies of worshippers against your collapsing realm. You would have become a host body for one if the null didn't find you first.'

'That's why I've never participated in the shitstorm around her.'

He giggled like a young boy and pushed the door. A barely lit spiral ladder was going underneath to the core of the world, its end lost in the dark like the one on the cursed ship.

'That's the local prison,' I guessed.

'The undervaults. I won't take you to the lowest levels as no one who enters them comes back. I must warn you even the upper chambers are no pleasant sight.'

'Easy to guess. Imudon's favourite menace.'

A small sphere of warp-fire floated up from his palm, showing the steps but unable to dispel the unnatural evernight. I followed the priest, a vague feeling of trouble now even stronger than during the talk with his boss. Flight after flight, we descended the endless spiral in blind murk. In a while warp noise appeared, growing with every step down, then I saw faint maroon light leaking from beneath, and finally screams of pain and terror reached my ears.

Soon I found myself in a vast hall lit by similar blobs of unlight. Sickening smell of blood filled the cold air. Shadow guards came and went past us, dragging captives disfigured by terrible wounds. Here and there tormented victims were shouting and pleading in side vaults furnished with the most gruesome implements; broken, almost lifeless bodies lay in frost-covered pits; yet unharmed prisoners shivered in panic in forged cages.

'I've got your message.' I walked on looking down at my feet not to throw up.

He stopped before one of the cages. 'Canoness Chrysopa.'

The Dialogous Sororita, clad in dirty rags, was standing on her knees, her eyes closed, hands clasped in the holy sign, wordless prayers on her lips. I hid behind the First Acolyte's back before she could see me.

'Prayers are of no help here.' He gave me a half-smile. 'She will get a mark soon. Almost all important captives get here, and an overwhelming majority gets out as loyal servants of the gods.'

'You say overwhelming majority.' I shook my head when we returned to the stairway. 'What about the rest?'

'Let's go a few levels down.'

Uncounted stairway flights into the dark. Once in a while dim reddish light of other chambers reached the steps but the priest didn't stop. Finally, he pointed at another entrance and invited me in. Unnatural cold was barely tolerable, psychic frost was growing all over my carapace and coat before my eyes. Blood pumping in my temples, almost fainting, I entered the hall.

The priest didn't go far. He leaned over one of the pits and made me a sign to come closer. There was a single frozen corpse, mutilated to the point it didn't look like a human being anymore.

'He's managed to die,' the First Acolyte said in the most innocent voice. 'He was a regimental Commissar a fortnight ago in the real world. As time is absent down here, centuries can pass for every minute of real time.'

'Grievous.' Tears suddenly ran down my cheeks freezing the moment they fell to the floor.

He shrugged his shoulders. 'The external wounds hurt the less of all. You see that promise of one's life almost always means promise of the soul as well. It's time to return to our business, my lady. The shadows will toss the corpse down the stairwell, and I have things to do underneath.'

'What about my team then?'

'They're already out of the temple, your Ravens will pick them up. I'll take them back if anyone learns about our treaty.'

'One more thing, man. Can I take the Canoness along?'

'When you escape the temple. One more or less is of no importance.'

Blood was already dripping from my nose and mouth, congealing in dark spots on my carapace. He turned me towards the stairs and covered my face with his hand. The grisly vault vanished. I was standing next to the flask stalagmite again, alone to ponder over the pact.


	7. VI

I sat down on the floor and hid my face and both hands in the scarf to chase away the horrifying images. The reckless promise had been inevitable to get out of the daemon shrine but the idea of sacrificing a random person to the dark gods gave me chills, something even my late mentor would have shunned till his fateful meeting with Imudon. I thought about embarking to the closest Malleus fortress, entrusting my friends to the protection of the Grey Knights and confessing everything to get executed before one of these Chaos-worshippers came to claim me.

'Imudon's going here! We'll all get sacrificed!' I heard a desperate cry in the nave, and other voices repeated it all over the hall. 'Outta here! Away! To the docks!'

Thousands of worshippers rushed to the doors past me, trampling those who'd tripped on the run. All of a sudden Imudon appeared from a side passage and entered the niche, his face so stern and grim I didn't dare to tease him anymore.

'Treason within,' he grumbled. 'Your bloody Ravens have turned the sanctuary into utter mayhem. They've even released your team, luckily, the captives didn't have time to wander far from the shrine.'

'Everyone's running for their lives.' The unexpected vanishing of his solemn tone was surprising.

'That won't change anything. My own barge cannot be reached from the docks, and I've led enough soldiers here to stand on guard while I'm finishing the ritual. Are you ready to say farewell to your petty life?'

'You'll kill my retinue before?'

'I don't have to. They're currently trapped in one of the valleys leading to the docks. They'll go by the path for days but will never get a step closer to their goal. Soon they'll start starving, and stray hunting daemons will sense live red-blooded prey among the rocks.'

'You old despicable shithead.' I clenched my fists. 'One day the brave fellows of Titan will blow up your daemon hut.'

'I won't be very sad.' He leaned to me and lifted my face by the chin. 'I say, has anybody tried to talk to you while I was absent?'

'Not at all. I was just sitting here in the corner.'

'Are you sure? That's important for both.'

'Stop pestering me with silly questions. I've already told you.'

He frowned with visible doubt but didn't say anything. A squad of Word Bearer legionnaires was waiting outside, a decorated sergeant holding Plodia by the neck, another marine leading the Canoness. Imudon took me by the hand and led me to the altars where his creepy second-in-command was waiting, half-circled by a dozen shadows. He smiled with the corners of his mouth when he saw me. I looked aside with posed indifference.

Imudon turned to the central gate, his jaws clenched with strain, and uttered a chilling phrase of unwords paying no attention to the stampede behind his back. The shadows started chanting bloodcurdling canticles in high-pitched inhuman voices, sulphurous fumes oozed from numerous cracks in the walls and columns. Plodia was standing by my side ignoring everything around, her null field shrunk to virtually nothing. The Canoness muttered prayers as if to muffle the unholy hymns, and I followed her example. The long-familiar words of the Death Incantation, the most fitting for the desperate situation.

'Plodia Interpunctella!' Imudon bellowed. 'You had renounced the false faith in the Enthroned Corpse before you arrived here. Are you ready to curse the Anathema and pledge your worthless existence to the Great Powers of the Immaterium?'

Plodia said nothing. Imudon repeated his invocation but gasped in the middle of the phrase. The legionnaire who stood behind him stabbed the Dark Apostle in the side with a dagger of black flint. Imudon fell to his knees, and bright red blood streamed out to the ground. Two more drew their swords and attacked the sergeant at the same time. The First Acolyte and the shadows didn't move, simply watching over the skirmish.

'Frigging run away!' I was the first to come to my senses.

The shadows had vanished, and their master walked up to the disguised Ravens finishing the few Word Bearers. Raaf swung the black blade at him, but the weapon slipped out of his hand the moment it touched the red ceramite. The sergeant brought the First Acolyte down with a punch to the face and made a sign to the others. I gave Plodia a shove and pointed at the exit. The Ravens picked us three up to their shoulders and ran to the exit kicking aside cultists who came in their way. I undid the clasps of the marked carapace and tossed it down.

The very earth of the daemon world was shaking beneath our feet when we broke through the panicked crowd and left the shrine. Crushed, trampled, choking cultists on the ground marked the way to the docks.

'Three of the ours have taken a small ship for us to escape,' Raaf said. 'We're only sorry about your friends. They were nowhere to be found.'

'Imudon said they're trapped in one of the nearby valleys. Please.'

'How shall we take them out? Are your psychic powers enough?'

'I will try. Along with Plodia.'

Raaf took Plodia from another marine's shoulder and seated her to the other pauldron. Skinny to the point of emaciation, she barely looked like herself now. As soon as we got out of the nave, her abilities started returning, and I felt uneasy when the edge of her null field came in touch with my aura.

'Get to the port, bluds,' Raaf shouted to his crew. 'If we don't come within an hour by your chronometers, leave without us.'

I leaned back to fall out of the suppressing blankness and concentrated on my psyker-sight. The cacophony of human and daemonic presences was a tangle impossible to undo. I tried to stray away from the main flow of people aiming for the side valleys. After minutes of fruitless search, I felt a hint of human souls but soon other entities were startled by the intent stare. I clutched the pauldron edging not to fall down at an unexpected psychic attack.

'Head to the south-east.' I pointed to the valley drawing my laspistol.

With Plodia's helpful aura, we were approaching the distant narrow passages between high barren rocks quicker than expected on the warp-twisted planet. Finally, I saw four little figures climbing a steep footpath to the top of a high cliff separating them from the docks. They didn't stop but couldn't get even a meter closer to the goal. A pack of winged shadows was circling over their heads, one or two diving down at them every second. All their ammunitions had been left in the owl so all my team could do was swinging primitive melee weapons taken from cultists at the attacking entities.

Plodia had fully come to herself, watching the pack of daemonic predators in combat concentration.

'Furies. Cowardly but dangerous when in numbers. Give me your pistol, Volentia. Time to remember Lord Mentor's trainings. Get ready for a blast.'

We stopped atop the footpath, and Plodia leapt to the ground, no more a scared abused captive, but a determined fighter. She cried out a battle litany, and my ears just popped at a powerful discharge of anti-psychic energy. In a few minutes she was already halfway down the slope, shooting at the furies scared more by her null field than the laser beam. My friends noticed her approach and speeded up to finally get out of the trap. With Plodia in the middle of the group, they climbed up where we were waiting.

'My buddy, sergeant Raaf of the Raven Guard,' I presented the marine to my retinue.

Angel frowned at the unholy armour of the Raven but didn't say anything. All still clad in their vacation clothes, now torn and dirty, they had wounds from the daemons' claws and fangs but luckily none of the injuries were grave. There was no time to exchange impressions so we hurried to the other side of the mountain pass where crowds of fugitives were struggling to get a place in a ship or shuttle.

Raaf pointed at a small trader escort tethered to one of the dock towers. As the planet was so distorted there was likely no real orbit at all, private vessels not belonging to the legion were simply 'parked' over the dock area. Larger ones had rows of lighters and landing modules now soaring up one by one with parties of both cultists and slaves.

'Me crew had led almost all quarry slaves to capture this one,' Raaf said proudly. 'A squad of traitors met us at the gates but they stood no chance against a whole crowd running for their lives. Many have perished fighting for their freedom but there's no serious battle without fallen.'

'That's where you've got a new groove,' I chuckled.

Bolter fire made us fall back when we were about to board the remaining shuttle guarded by two Ravens. Still suffering from their battle wounds they'd got in the convent basilica and protected only by working uniforms and parts of trophy armour, both leapt out to join us in the skirmish against a fresh squad of Word Bearers.

Their leader shot a few warpflame blasts at the guards but they died out as soon as they got in Plodia's null range. Angel roared in a bout of blood fury raising his crudely forged axes over his head, the Ravens took cover behind the lander keeping the enemies away by non-stop bolter fire.

'Volentia, let's start the engine now!' I heard Fluffster shouting.

I ran after him into the lighter. We got to the trashed, battered cabin, and Fluffster started tapping on the cracked sensor screens to prepare the shuttle for boarding the escort. The operation system, as always on looted cultist vessels, was buggy and slow, it started only after he had tried a few Martian codes to pacify the haywired Machine Spirit. I tried to be of help adjusting additional options and sending requests to the ship to prepare the landing deck and turn on a beacon so we could get there despite the unnatural geometry of the place.

Through the cabin windshield I saw Angel hacking at the enemies, his own blood streaming down his chest and shoulders along with theirs. Two of the attackers lay dead or mortally wounded on the ground, hit by a dozen bolter shots and mauled by the Blood Angel's furious strikes. One of the Word Bearers jumped back, a krak grenade in his hand, and aimed right at the cabin. As the lighter had no guns, Fluffster just pulled me down to the floor. A deafening blast thundered outside.

I lifted my head and sat up. The glass was intact. Two more Word Bearers had turned into a bloody mess of torn flesh and fragmented armour. I heard our fighters run up the ramp. Angel entered the last, hardly able to stand as his side and chest were blooded up by the explosion. Raaf and another Raven helped him to sit down and handed him a trophy stim-pack, leaving aside their usual irony for the Blood Angels.

'Specs on the henching fellow,' Raaf said with approval. 'He's absolutely wicked. Kicked the grenade back to the traitors. Got bitta grazed himself but nothing that won't heal.'

Led by the experienced Magos, the lighter left the ground and headed to the ship. The remaining Ravens along with Canoness Chrysopa had already divided the ex-slaves to groups and distributed them between the decks and halls. To our relief, the Navigator spire wasn't empty. When the marines broke the locks and seals on the door, we found an elderly emaciated man chained to his chair. We removed his facial mask, unlocked the shackles, and Sister brought him some water from the ship's plumbing.

'What do you want from me?' he wheezed out on drinking the big cup to the bottom. 'I've already been captured twice and got used to slavemasters.'

Instead of an answer I pulled the rosette out of my pocket. His reaction surprised me as most citizens of the Imperium felt either fear or hostility towards the bearers of this imposing emblem. He fell to his knees, tears running down his peaked cheeks, grabbed my hand and pressed the rosette to his lips.

'No one will come to the rescue, the bastard daemon-worshipper said. The Emperor has sent you, my lady.'

Raaf got rid of his tainted armour and was waiting us on the bridge along with a few leaders chosen by the ex-slaves. The vessel was decrepit and distorted by long years in the warp but there was enough fuel to make a one-way trip to the Imperial space.

'Good sirs,' said one of the miners, a bulky grim man with underhive tattoos. 'We'd never be welcome in the Imperium. Half of us are either former mobsters or cult penitents. But most likely, they'll just blow up the mutated ship on sight.'

The navigator descended to the bridge, supported by Uncle and Sister. He shook his head sadly.

'I know only a few warp routes from here, all to the Ocellatus sector. I won't risk venturing to random locations lest we jump out to the core of a star or, even worse, a xenos domain.'

'Ocellatus is close to my home sector,' I said. 'You have to trust the Emperor who's taken you out of this hell on earth.'

'Most of us have been raised in hatred for Him,' another fugitive objected.

'But He's pardoned you instead of letting you perish there and have your soul fed to the Neverborn,' Canoness Chrysopa supported me.

'We'll be sent to penal colonies at best, ma'am.'

'None of you will be put to death as you've assisted us in our escape. I'm ready to witness that before the conclave. You'll be checked for taint and get a chance to start another life in a city or an agri-world. If any of you is guilty of really grave crimes, that one has to remember no prison world can be even remotely as horrifying as the shrine undervaults.'

After a consideration we chose the shortest of the routes leading to the edge of the sector. The ship storages had a stock of dried rations but the fugitives were so numerous I called Fluffster to help me calculate and distribute the daily portions. If the rations were used in the regime of strictest economy, we had about two weeks before the passengers started starving. The ship had an almost working system of water recycling but it took a couple of days to repair it enough to get three quarters of its max capacity. Sister took command of the medical duties, using what little was stored in the infirmary to treat wounds.

After another distribution of food, I joined Fluffster in the corner of a mess-room where he was writing a daily entry in the ship logs checking the data from vessel cogitators.

'The previous owner was a total asshole in the terms of dealing with machines,' he complained. 'Still a lot to do to prevent daemonic abominable intelligence from messing into the functioning of the engines. The cogitators are so bugged I wonder how they work at all.'

'The stocks have already been used to a half.' I was browsing the ration inventory. 'The navigator's doing his best but he's too weak to combat the tides. A day behind the planned course.'

'Warp is rarely predictable. We might spend here minutes as well as aeons.'

'We have people to care for. Have to admit, I wish I could get as far from the memories of that nightmarish place as possible. Wonder how you've spent so much time there and are still sane.'

'I have to admit, I was aware of the place even before so it wasn't as traumatic for me. As for your other friends, only prayers kept them alive.'

'I've been truly impressed by Imudon. The meeting I tried to evade for so long. He's different from Aphedron, or the Flying Fox, or the Iron team. One of ancient great strategists of Old Terra said, if you know the enemy and know yourself, in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. If you know yourself but not the enemy, your chances of winning and losing are equal. Now I know more about the enemy, but I'm not sure whether I really know myself.'

'I think it's exactly the opposite. You've got a chance to learn more about yourself during the uneasy ordeal but you're yet to find out who the real enemy is.'

We left the Immaterium two days later than planned, already running out of fuel and rations. I hoped we could land on a shady trading outpost to bargain for the replenishment of our stocks but we got intercepted by a border flotilla right on entering the sector space.

I heard a harsh voice from the bridge dynamics. 'Stop immediately. You're wanted all over the sector by order of Lord Astronotus.'

The High Inquisitor who'd nicked Plodia and removed her tainted tooth implant, I recalled the story told by Lady Melitara. I typed in my inquisitorial password before answering.

'This ship has been taken by the Imperial forces, sir. I'm Inquisitor Volentia of the Botian Hereticus Conclave, accompanied by a squad of the Raven Guard Adeptus Astartes.'

'Delighted to hear, m'lady. Let me escort you to the Inquisitorial citadel.'

As I'd learned from Plodia, the reputation of Lord Astronotus was far from perfect. A staunch narrow-minded Puritan, he was mostly renowned for checking up everything with paranoid zeal. She remembered with a laugh how she'd encountered him at a city fair in her rogue trader times. He'd arrived there in a full suit of power armour, mounted on a mechanical throne, surrounded by an illustrious retinue of warrior acolytes and Battle Sisters, tasting sweets displayed on the stalls to find out whether there were any with Chaos taint. He'd have solved the Alackaday case better than the hapless Domna Drago, I had to admit.

Astronotus received us in his stateroom in the heart of the operation base that reminded not of a neat office like that on Uebotia but of a perfectly armed fortress ready to counter any attack. He nodded at us from his lofty throne, clad in armour even at civil duties. More a warrior than an official or a sage himself, he was an unusually tall man with a muscular neck, a buzz cut and a suntanned face with a massive lower jaw.

'You're welcome in our headquarters, Lady Volentia. Lady Interpunctella.' He seemed surprised by Plodia's radical transformation. 'We'll praise the Emperor for leading you out of the enemy domain. Greetings to you, honoured Battle-Brothers. And I'm especially delighted to see you again, venerable Sage.'

To my surprise, Fluffster walked up the throne dais and shook hands with the High Inquisitor. He must have encountered Astronotus during one of his joint ventures with Corydoras and his team.

'All of your fellow fugitives will be thoroughly examined, and if there's no mutation beyond repair, they'll get a list of vacancies in nearby systems. As for you, sirs and ladies, I have to apologise but we are obliged to put you on quarantine till we get an official response from your superiors. I personally promise you will be provided all necessary comfort and treatment for the wounded but we have to record your accounts of the daemon world and put you through a series of tests.'

We spent about three weeks in the stronghold till the end of the formalities. My most serious concern during the long interrogation and recording sessions was to keep the malign secret of the shrine even from my team. Unwilling to damage his perfect working reputation and having friendly obligations to his distant relative, Platydoras did his best to throw off any suspicion. Even a man as noncompromising as Astronotus was satisfied by my characteristics issued by the Ordo. There were questions about Plodia as the Inquisitor Lord was aware of the latest scandals but her service with the Malleus meant atonement for all previous sins.

A week later Aeneus finally arrived to pick us up and embark for Uebotia. I was especially delighted that he shipped us the owl the Sororitas had found in the ravine while searching for us in the woods. His eyes watered when he finally saw his mother who he hadn't even hoped to see alive again.

'I owe you, Volentia. You may count on me and Ephestia even in your darkest hours.'

I said my goodbyes to the Ravens and Chrysopa with mutual assertments of future cooperation. Unfortunately, I didn't have time right now to get to the convent of the Revelation for another acolyte for my retinue but I knew I had sages to rely on during my future investigations. Leaving back the hardships of the uneasy mission, we sailed forth to our sector as there was a lot of new work to do.


	8. Epilogue

Holding to his wounded side, Imudon got up with effort. The grisly shrine was completely empty, even the shadows gone, crimson wisps glaring on the walls in sinister silence. Two of his bodyguards lay breathless on the floor, slain by the loyalists who'd managed to deceive his due to a traitor in his own warhost. He felt irreal, irrational horror creeping inside his weary mind, sending chills down his spine. He wiped cold sweat from his forehead looking for his tricky second-in-command.

'You're still here.' His voice was husky and weak.

The First Acolyte walked out from a niche behind the row of columns, staring at him with a guilty shy smile as always. Imudon gritted his teeth in irritation.

'Why haven't you stopped them?'

'The gods have forbidden me to intervene. They're discontent with your recent service.'

'That was you who let the Raven sergeant get the sacrificial blade. And I'll bleed to death to please the gods with my doomed soul.' Imudon screwed up his face. 'You've done that to get your hands on the warhost.'

'Don't you dare to say that.' For the first time the First Acolyte's tone was firm and angry. 'I stopped his hand before the fatal blow. I'll help you for the last time. There's no room for you here anymore. Get back to the barge to flee the domain of the Four before their wrath crushes you.'

'There's always been no place for me in the shrine, and you know that better than me,' Imudon growled.

'Get out,' the First Acolyte snarled.

'You have to keep to our agreement, lest...'

'Lest what?' The First Acolyte put his hands on his hips.

Imudon turned away to pick up his crozius. One of the doors swung open at a mighty gust of aether wind. He felt relief to see the familiar interiors of his warship again.

'What about the promise?' He asked the priest when he closed the door behind his back.

'I've already told you I'll assist you for the last time. From now on, you will take up everything the gods command you to do. You might return to the sanctuary only once, without the warband, with due sacrifice at ready. And another competitor to vie for the attention of the gods before the last gate is opened.'

Deadly tired by the days of mishap, Imudon retreated to brood over the accident and the perspectives alone in his private chambers. His only hope to get rid of his impostor status had almost failed, and the gods were about to repay him all his scorn and distrust for the Realm of Chaos, the lack of faith he concealed behind the solemn preaching cliches he'd repeated as a smart parakeet for millennia. The worst thing to realise was the terrifying fact he was dependent on the First Acolyte more than even before. If he was aware of that shady man's business in the messy days of the Heresy, he'd have better thrown himself on the mercy of his former curators. Or abandoned the legion to return to his old ways of a feudal world warrior-noble.

The fishy deal with the rogue inquisitor and his former interrogator had led further than he expected, and he was mortified to get pursued again by those he'd escaped long ago.


End file.
